


X-Man and Supervisory Special Agent: Dr. Spencer Reid

by ShimmeringDarkness



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Mutant Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid is a Summers, Spencer Summers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:16:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 46,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23585980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShimmeringDarkness/pseuds/ShimmeringDarkness
Summary: What if Dr. Spencer Reid isn't quite who he says he is. Spencer is a Summers brother and dating Remy. How does the team find out the truth? A phone call of all things, but how does the team react to this hidden side of their boy genius?
Relationships: Remy LeBeau/Spencer Reid
Comments: 24
Kudos: 155





	1. Chapter 1 - What Are You Hiding?

It had been a long case for the BAU A team and they were all lounging around in the bullpen after a long flight and tedious paperwork. Will had stopped by with Henry and Jess had brought Jack. Even Hotch and Rossi had come down from their offices to join in the chatter waiting for it to be 6:30, even if Hotch was begrudging about it. Garcia had literally had to march up to his office and threaten to lock his laptop before dragging him down. Everyone was having a good time chatting and standing around for a bit of relaxed down-time. Reid had gotten a graze on the side of his arm and had just gone off to the bathroom to change the bandage when his phone rang. The team glanced around before settling on Hotch and Morgan asked, “Should we get that? It’s his work phone so it’s probably important.” Though it was JJ who piped up: “Leave it, it might be personal, if it’s important they’ll leave a message.” Just then the answering machine picked up and while it was running through Reid’s recorded spiel Garcia grumbled, “I have to to show him how to turn that broadcast off in case someone records something he doesn’t want anyone just walking by to hear.” Morgan smirked, “Yeah probably should, but for now we can eavesdrop.”

A voice clicked on, they quickly realized it was a personal call but their interest had already been caught and they were listening. “Hey Sherlock, gimme a call when you get this. We’re gonna need your help soon, specifically your lover boy but the whole group, I think we might be coming down to DC soon, you’ve got a you know what down there. I’ll give you the details when you call but if you guys get something local that seems suspicious let me know.”

At that, the whole group exchanged glances suddenly a little ill-at-ease trying to figure out what was being hidden in the not so secretly coded message that seemed to be talking about potentially giving some unidentified person classified case information. Just what was their genius up to?

“Also Alexandria might be calling soon and you know he’s way more obvious than me so get your work phone off speaker asap since he always mixes your numbers up. Can you tell I’m annoyed with him right now like we were training and your lover boy here toasted his butt and he’s been whining like a girl for a week, thus I’m calling him Alexandria. Also sorry I’m clogging your work line but since we both work obscenely unhealthy hours and I'm still in my office I figure you probably are too unless you're back out on a case already and then why the heck didn’t you tell me, I’m your older brother you gotta tell me this stuff, well unless you’re just in the bathroom or getting coffee, or I mean brown sugar sludge, yeah that’s probably it.  
The whole team had to stifle snickers so they would be able to keep listening knowing how realistic that really was and that whoever was calling obviously knew Reid pretty well.  
“Oh and lover boy here told me you got fucking shot on this last case. What the hell’s up with that? Anyways, call me, see ya Spence and watch out for Lexi’s call.”

All filled with more questions than answers, the team, especially Garcia, prepared to pry answers out of their tight-lipped genius when it came to anything personal. They were waiting in a bit of tense silence when Reid’s phone rang again. Hotch spoke up this time sounding especially tense only to those who knew him well, which this team did. “Leave it, if it’s this ‘Alexandria’ the first caller was talking about I want to know what’s going on here”

“ _Bonjour mon coeur_. I miss you, Spence. Remy hasn’t seen ya in too long. The others miss you too, next time you’re in New York ya need to stop by. Mebe we can head to N’Awlins fo’ a bit when ya got some time off. Been missin' his Papa Remy has,” A voice came forth with a thick Cajun accent.

Will visibly looked shocked, straightening and paling, gripping a chair and leaning heavily against Morgan’s desk who he was standing next to.  
The team stared at him and JJ before turning to Prentiss. They couldn’t very well eavesdrop into another language without Will or Prentiss’ translations, knowing Prentiss spoke a little French from one of her mother’s brief postings and Will from growing up in New Orleans. Though Will seemed to know who it was so that might not be necessary, and from his reaction, it might not be a good person. Prentiss held her hands up “Just listen, I’ll summarize at the end whatever isn’t in English, this person obviously flips between both so just shh or ask Will because it sounds more like New-Orleans French than regular French.”

The voice continued, “Remy’s real sorry he may have accidentally told Scotty ya got shot. He didn’t know you hadn’t told him, promise! Anyway, _cher_ , Remy’s pretty sure ya gonna have a couple messages comin’ in, Scotty, Alex, mebe Logan too but Remy’s not sure ‘bout him. Jus’ tryin’ a give ya a warnin’ cher bcuz I t’ink most of dem be callin dis work number. Remy’ll come see ya t’night prob’ly _mon amour_ , he lost his key though by accident, ya t’ink ya can get him ano’ter copy, it wouldn't do fo’ him to break in too many times. Might be a bit suspicious Remy t’inks. Eric’s mini at da mansion found it t’ogh, but Remy didn’t wan’ ‘ta go back out fo’ it so he had ‘im blow it up so ya don’t need ta worry, Remy knows how ya are _cher_. Anyway, Remy’ll get off, ya got more calls comin’ _cher_. Let ya know when Remy’s inside me, also _cher_ , _Scotty et Alex ont dit qu'ils pourraient aussi venir, juste pour visiter, l'affaire ne durera pas avant quelques semaines. J'essaierais d'éloigner les fédéraux de votre appartement jusqu'à leur retour à New York. Remy te manque, Spencer, il a hâte de te baiser jusqu'à ce que tu ne puisses pas marcher droit et ensuite tu vas lui faire la même chose. Je parie que vous rougissez de cette façon sexy, n'est-ce pas? Je t'aime Spencer._ (For those of us that don’t speak French: Scotty and Alex said they might come too, just to visit, the case won't happen for a few weeks. I would try to keep the Feds away from your apartment until they return to New York. Remy misses you, Spencer, he can't wait to fuck you until you can't walk straight and then you're going to do the same to him. I bet you're blushing in that sexy way of yours, aren't you? I love you, Spencer.)

Will, who had regained his color and balance at some point in the recording and had just taken a drink of water, started choking on it towards the end of Remy’s message. He had also turned bright red, as had Prentiss, who also looked a little suspicious though. Morgan slapped Will a couple of times on the back before he regained his breath, still the color of a tomato. Morgan raised an eyebrow “Either of you want to enlighten us on what turned even the composed Emily Prentiss the color of a fire truck?” “Absolutely not.” Followed by Will’s “No way in hell” before he muttered “ _Bien que Remy ait peut-être déjà une place réservée là-bas._ ” (Though Remy may already have a place reserved there.) Emily looked at him alarmed before grabbing will by the wrist and dragging him into JJ’s office and shutting the door.  
“Okay we both know what I heard down there so what the hell was he talking about and how the hell do you know this guy and who is Remy?”  
“Okay, Remy is the caller, he flips into third person along with throwing French into his speech without even thinking about it, though the ending was obviously trying to make it so no one else could understand. How do I know him? He would get picked up by the cops while I was growing up, he’s a few years older than me, and instead of booking him, they would drag him back to our house. Ma pere would get him a bath, some food, and he’d have disappeared by mornin’. Same thing every time. Never anything serious, usually pickpocketing or stealin’ a loaf ‘a bread from the bakery. He had a hard time growin’ up see Remy’s a mutant. Called La Diable Blanc mosta' his life. The white devil.” Emily nodded that having translated it already. “He’s got these eyes, if ya actually look they’re not bad, all red and black, they draw you right in. He calls it his charm power, I don’t know what it is exactly though.” “Wait” Emily hesitated, “are you saying Reid’s a mutant?” “Seems like it to me cher, Remy don’t usually get good attention from anyone who’s not, even sometimes not from those who are, his eyes, they’re really striking, he wears sunglasses basically 24/7 I think I’m gonna ask him about it privately, you can come too, and if he doesn’t come clean completely I’ll bring it up to the team but for now I’m not going to say anything about the first half and why he needs to make sure there are no ‘feds’ in his apartment. But do you know what he was talking about, breaking into Reid’s apartment since he lost the key? “Er, yeah but I’m not sure I should even tell you without talking to Spencer first. He’s Jen’s best friend and Henry’s Godfather, I’m going to talk to him though and I’ll let you know first if anything in their relationship is to worry about.”  
“Please Will, and thanks, I’m not going to translate any of it other than saying he was saying Hi, he loves Spencer, the minimal stuff. I’m going to let Spencer explain the rest first and hopefully burn the second half of that message out of my brain. That is not a picture I ever wanted to think of.” Will laughed, “Me too cher, me too, I just realized in Cajun-French cher isn’t always a relationship thing, it can be, but not always like in normal french, it kind of works for anyone, I swear I’m not flirting with you or cheating on Jen or anything.” She just laughed “I figured, don’t worry, I know you love her.”

Meanwhile down in the bullpen, the adults aimlessly chatting and entertaining the kids. Waiting for Emily and Will to come back down. JJ was definitely curious about what made her husband react like that but figured she’d wait until they were home alone before asking, unless they answered her questions before that. Everyone was lost in thought enough they didn’t notice Rossi slip up and over to JJ’s office or shut the door gently behind him, though Emily and Will did, they shut up abruptly. “Look, I’m guessing you’re trying to figure out how much of Reid’s and this Remy’s private message to share?” At their nods he continued “Now I didn’t get everything but Italian and French are extraordinarily similar and almost any words I didn’t know I could guess. So, someone, more than likely Hotch, is going to know I understood most of it and want me to translate so I need to know how much to tell him.” Emily looked embarrassed before saying “I’m so sorry Rossi, it didn’t even occur to me you would get most of it. We weren’t going to tell them much other than the basics, Reid and Remy are lovers, hi, goodbye, I love you, that kind of thing. If they want to know why we spluttered so bad we’ll just say it was a dirty message that we’re not repeating.” Rossi nodded “Yeah I have no interest in repeating even what I understood or picturing Reid that way but it’s burned into my brain now, so I’m fine with not sharing.” Emily nodded and continued “Will knows Remy from growing up and knows more background that he didn’t tell me so he’s going to talk to Reid privately before telling us if we should share with the team about people coming to his apartment who shouldn’t be around ‘feds’ and if we don’t need to the forget about that whole message. Work for you?” Rossi nodded and Will said, “Alright let's go face the question brigade.”

They headed back to the anxious group but before they could even start asking the answering machine went off again followed by a New York voice again, strikingly similar to the first.  
‘Hey pidge, it’s the best Summers but you probably already knew that, anyway. Scooter’s probably gonna be callin' ya soon, I better have called before him. But being the god damned over-achiever he is he probably beat me, well fuck him.  
The whole team exchanged glances, not quite able to picture the boy genius associating with someone like this and right then Reid walked back over to his desk for his face to grow deathly white when he heard his answering machine going and everyone staring.  
“We’re probably gonna need your powers on a case soon. It’s down in DC so you shouldn’t have to take more than like a day off. Rems is probably heading down tonight and Scooter and I might follow, we haven’t seen you in a while pidge. Oh yeah, and telling your lover but not your brother you got shot, really? I swear, it's like I'm the last person you tell everything to. I can kind of understand telling Scott or even Logan before telling me, because they are like, super overprotective of you, but telling Remy? Before you tell me??? That hurts Pidge!" Anyways, I’m sure you’re busy being all FBI badass but we do the same thing just with family, and you could actually be yourself ya know?”

At that line, Spencer all of a sudden unfroze and raced over to his phone hitting answer and not waiting a second before spewing a very un-spencer like rampage.  
“What the hell are you trying to do here Alex, get me fucking fired from a job I actually love, because you may well have done it this time. If you could keep my fucking work number separate this wouldn’t be a problem, I go to the bathroom for 10 minutes to change the bandage where yes I did get shot and tell Remy first, and no I didn’t tell you because you fucking do stupid shit like this where anyone who walked by my desk could hear the answering machine and everything you’re saying.” He sighed heavily before saying “Sorry Alex, it’s been a long day and even longer case, why were you calling me?” The team could no longer hear the answer but Reid then said: “Okay I’ll work on it, I wouldn’t come tonight though because I no doubt get to explain this mess to my coworkers who were standing around and heard your entire message.” … “Bye Alex, I love you too, even if sometimes your only goal in life is to give Scott and me headaches.” He smiled before hanging up but when he turned to look at the team his smile dropped. They all opened their mouths but Spencer held a hand up stopping them in their tracks, “ I know you have questions, I will try to answer them, but not here, literally anywhere else.” “What about your house?” Morgan asked knowing from the first call and what they’d heard of the second, some people were planning on coming over and, maybe they could meet them. Spencer wasn't an idiot, he knew what Derek was trying to do but he had no plans for that to happen. He would simply catch a ride with someone back and text all 3 of them on the way to not come to his apartment until he told them they could. Unlike the team believed, he wasn’t technologically incompetent, he set his personal phone to get all work calls forwarded to it so he could see everything right away, even if he wasn’t at the bureau. Right now he was feeling it a little though having forgotten to turn the speaker off on the answering machine, but that also meant he had voicemails he had listened to in the bathroom so he knew the team was trying to figure out what was going on based on what they had heard.  
As he was about to ask Morgan for a ride, Will piped up, “Spencer, why don’t you come with us back to your apartment, I’m sure Henry would love to play with you a little.”


	2. Chapter 2 - Meeting Remy

_As he was about to ask Morgan for a ride, Will piped up, “Spencer, why don’t you come with us back to your apartment, I’m sure Henry would love to play with you a little.”_

Spencer nodded and like he expected, once in the car the questions started quickly though. He was prepared to ask them to wait but he hasn’t been prepared for the question Will asked and it shocked his answer right out of his mouth. “So,” Will started “Remy LeBeau, huh, never did know where he ended up after he was banished. Heard he’s been back around a few times after Bella Donna lifted that though. See his pere, show his new amour where he grew up, never heard of a Master thief and a federal agent though. Jean-Luc and the guild must’ve loved that one.” “Jean-Luc knows and doesn’t care, and very little of the guild knows, Will” Spencer hissed venomously, gentle in everything until you poked at his lover who had been through more in his life that Spencer thought someone should go through in a hundred lifetimes. “They just know that the Prince has a Beau, that is under both the Assassins' and the Thieves' protections. Very few know my name or job, less still what I look like.” That threw Will “Assassins and Thieves, th-that would make you untouchable, how does that even work?” he sputtered out. “Bella Donna and Remy are still technically married, it was official before the public ceremony and duel, and it was never annulled. That still bonds the guilds even if many don’t realize it. Thus, being with Remy and I suppose Bella Donna by extension if you follow guild logic, puts me under both’s protection. It also gave me both guilds’ enemies but that’s besides the point.” He sighed “And that is much more than I planned on saying at all Will, christ.” “I won’t share any of what you told me, there’s no need, I understand the secrecy the Guild’s run under and the power they hold beneath the surface, For chrissakes LeBeau’s only ever served time for like one thing when he was 19, he’s a master thief, there’s no catching him, not for the government at least.”  
“Spence, you got two other calls before you came out of the bathroom, the first one seemed very, coded, for lack of a better word, they even talked about passing on info about a case? People are going to be a little suspicious,” JJ spoke then. “I know, my phones are connected so I heard the same messages you guys did on my cell, that’s why I wasn’t surprised you guys had questions, I was just hoping I could get back out before the 3rd call came, obviously that didn’t completely happen. Will,” Spencer asked, “How much does JJ know about New Orleans and how much did you translate of Rem’s message for the team?” “Not a ton, she knows enough to get that I’m talking about them, but not much more, since I never really played favorites between the Guilds I didn’t make too many enemies. Jean-Luc was always one of the best though, told Remy that bein’ his fils wasn’t gonna get ‘im outta trouble, it’d get ‘im inta it and he needed to get outta’ it on ‘is own. As for the team, Emily obviously understood the whole thing, as did Rossi for the most part, and we all agreed I would talk to you first before we tell the team any of the content.” “Thank you, you, I will answer pretty much all of your questions honestly, the rest of them, I don’t know, I’m not going into detail on the guilds and I would prefer you not to either.” That’s fine w’ me _mec_ ”

“Wait, oh my god” Reid looked up and stared at Will “how didn’t I ever notice before?!” Will looked amused “and what is that?” “LaMontagne” Spencer said like that explained everything. “Yeah, ‘dats me and ma’ _pere’s_ last name.” Will laughed. “Remy-LaMontagne… your father was the one cop…” “Yeah Spencer, Remy spent many a night in our guest room after my dad hauled him in, never could book him in my dad, fed ‘im, bathed ‘im, was gone before sunlight.” “You have no idea how much of a relief that is.” “Why’s dat?” Will asked seemingly genuinely confused “You weren’t just a street cop with a grudge against someone you’d never met, you actually knew him, even if it’s not a good opinion it’s based on real experiences, not stories” “Oh, yeah, course, real polite as a kid he was. Always thought that was a bit interesting, street kid with half the city after him, and everyone looking down on him, still a bright, sweet, polite kid. Jean-Luc had a hell of a time w’ ‘im, I do know dat though, but what fils doesn’t hate their _pere_ at some point.” JJ reached over and brushed his cheek “I’ll be sure to remind you of that when you and Henry are about to kill each other.” “You do that _cher_ I’ll probably need the reminder.”

Will looked back at where Spencer had started playing with Henry who had just woken up in his car seat, “Spencer, you should probably go into your apartment first to warn anyone who might be in there, namely Remy, that your whole team’s coming.” “Yeah, I was planning on it, Remy likes to lounge on my sofa, uh, lacking key clothing items we’ll say when he thinks I’m the only one that’ll be showing up, and with Henry and Jack, I’d rather not scar them for life.” JJ smirked, “Hotch and I would appreciate that Spence.”

They pulled up to the apartment complex second only to Emily and Morgan both of whom were standing outside his apartment with hands on their guns. All three walking up tensed “what’s wrong?” Morgan said, “Either you left a couple of lights on and didn't lock your door which I doubt or someone’s inside pretty boy, and there’s a mark like someone attached something electric and then took it off your door.” Both Will and Spencer relaxed who said: “Oh okay, it’s fine.” Morgan looked at him incredulously “What?” “I’m not even going to pretend you didn’t hear the phone call, I got them on my cell phone as well so I know what you heard. The second call from Remy, he said he lost his key and needed me to get him a new copy but for tonight he was just going to break in. He doesn’t like to do that though because it weakens a security system the more times you do it.” “Excuse me, and how does he know how to do that, I’ve been over here pretty boy, you have really fancy security.” “And do I look like I would care about that, he’s the one that put the system in, he knows how to get around it.” Will muttered “of course he did” but no one other than JJ or Spencer seemed to hear. “Morgan, if it will make you feel better, I’ll go in and check first before anyone else comes in.” “Right because a group of federal agents are going to let you clear an apartment by yourself, try again.” “I know who’s in there!” “You think you know” “Oh good God, Will come with me, you know who Remy is, if it’s just him for the love of God don’t shoot.” Will nodded and moved up to the door next to Spencer quietly drawing his gun. “Why don’t you want us coming with you pretty boy?” “For God's sake because Remy has a habit of not wearing clothes when we don’t have company over and he never answered my text saying the whole team was coming.” “And if it’s not this Remy?” “Fine! Come with but you’ve been warned, Emily stay with JJ and Henry in case please.” Spencer unlocked the door and with the stealth of long time LEOs went towards the kitchen while Will watched the back hall and Derek checked the Living Room. “Who the hell are you, get your hands up!” Will got in first and like Reid had guessed it was Remy, only covered by a blanket. “It’s fine Morgan, he’s good.” “And who is this?” Spencer got through the doorway and said “that’s Remy like I said, Rems please check your texts next time, I told you my team was coming over, and please go get dressed. With a blanket wrapped around him, Remy went back towards the bedroom, with Spencer following who called over his shoulder “Morgan, let everyone else in please, then wait in the living room, please."

As soon as the bedroom door closed, Remy spun Reid against the wall and after giving them a very long kiss, asked: “you brought your team here _cher_ , Remy warned ya he and Scotty and Alex mebe comin' down tonight.” “I didn’t try to but I had gone to the bathroom to change the bandage when all 3 of you called, my team heard everything and now has a shit ton of questions, and courtesy of you and Alex, I’m pretty sure the first one’s gonna be am I a mutant and the 2nd courtesy of Scott is if I’m sharing classified information because he told me to tell him if we got a suspicious case that you guys might need to handle. Oh, and they both mentioned being my brother so that’s going to be fun to explain, along with my “lover boy” so they definitely know we’re dating. But on a personal question, is Scott seriously calling Alex, Alexandria in person.” Remy snorted “Yeah _cher_ , he is and it’s real funny, mebe a lil’ bit Remy’s fault though so Remy’s sorry _mon coeur_.” “Yeah, Scotty mentioned that you blasted him, yet another thing to explain, oh and all without saying my brothers run the X-men and I’m dating another one of them.” “You could tell ‘em _cher_ if they can’t accept it mebe you should come back to New York with us.” “I love this job though Remy.” “I know ya do _cher_ ” “Ready to face an inquisition” “Always _cher_ ”

They stepped back into the room where the rest of the team had arrived but fortunately, no Alex or Scott, for now at least. Jack, as always, was bouncing around in excitement when he saw Remy and said: “Who’s that Uncle Spence?” Spencer glanced at Remy who said, “You know de’re gonna have questions _cher_ , dat’s as good a place to start as any.” Spencer nodded before sitting on a couch next to the armrest, and it didn’t escape any of the profilers’ notice that this new person placed himself strategically between Spencer and the team. “This is Remy and he’s my.. Boyfriend” “Oooh yay, my boy genius got himself a maaaans!” Garcia squealed. The team though had noticed Spencer’s hesitation, clearly, they weren’t used to introducing each other, when Remy finally glanced away from Spencer to take in the team, nodding to each of them with his jaw dropping when he got to Will. “Well I’ll be damned, dey got a LaMontagne out a’ N’Awlins, dere’s a shock, Spencer’s talked bout you before, never realized you were your _pere’s fils_ t’ough.” Will laughed, “Spencer just figured out that we would know each other on the car ride over when he put my last name together with whatever stories you’ve told him. And I had to come up here, had ta follow _mon amour_ up here.” he said leaning over Henry’s carseat to kiss JJ. Remy got a little smile “So Henry dere is Spencer’s _filleul_?” Will nodded “Do ya know how many stories Remy could tell him ‘bout de antics his _pere_ got up to as a lil one?” “Sure do you know how much I could tell Spencer?” “ _Non_ , ma Penny a’ready knows mosta it.” “ _Well, merde, et, Si vous le jurez, veuillez basculer vers le français, je sais comment vous allez._ ” “Remy t’inks he should be offended, but dat’s true so _Oui_.” (Will said: Well, fuck, and, If you swear, please switch to French, I know how you are.)

Derel stepped in then, as amusing as that conversation was, “Spencer, I think we have a couple of questions.” "More than a few boy genius!" Garcia added in. “Yeah” Spencer nodded, “you can ask.” Hotch started, “I have one work one and then after that everyone else can go, I would never want to assume the worst about anyone on my team but the first phone call, the person said to tell him if we get a specific case, are you passing off confidential information to anyone, official or not?” “Absolutely not, I would be offended if I hadn’t listened to the voicemail too, but I know how suspicious it sounded. The person who called is the leader of a… specialized group who just asks that if we get a case that might involve mutants as the suspect to let him know, which is no more information than we put out in any kind of press conference.” Hotch nodded, “I wish you told me you did that, but that’s fine then.” Derek asked the next one that a lot of them were thinking “Are you a mutant pretty boy? One of the calls talked about your powers.” Spencer disappeared for a second before coming back with sunglasses on. “Emily, can you hit the lights a second please” After they were off, he spoke, “Yes, I am, I didn’t say anything because while I don’t think you guys are prejudiced, I might get lazy around you and forget to put my contacts in on a case or something, which is what I just took out and we all know how the bureau would react. My eyes are incredibly photosensitive though, thus I need the contacts or sunglasses for it not to burn or the dark.” He slid his glasses off and after blinking a couple of times opened them widely. “Woah Uncle Spence,” Jack said, “Your eyes are so cool! They’re different colors!” Spencer’s smile lit up his face “Thank you, Jack. That was my secondary reason, I didn’t want to scare either of the kids because I didn’t know what they’d heard in school from their friends. Call it selfish or shallow if you’d like but I didn’t think I could live with myself knowing my favorite little kids were scared of me.” Hotch gave him a gentle smile “I’d like to think I’m teaching him not to be judgemental, but you never know until a situation like this happens.” Remy spoke up “Y’all got a right to know, since I'm dating Penny, I’m a mutant as well” He slid his own sunglasses down revealing black and red eyes. Jack gasped again “Woah!” he looked at Spencer and in the loud whisper only kids can do said, “Uncle Spence, his name’s Remy right” Spencer nodded and Jack bounded over, “Your eyes are really cool too Remy, they're so bright! I think Uncle Spence’s are cooler though, they’re so many colors, they look like fireworks” The team laughed at his childhood innocence and Remy smiled “Thank you, Jack, that’s very kind, and I agree, I think your Uncle Spence’s eyes are even better than mine.” Jack looked at Hotch and said, “I want funner eyes too!” Spencer sighed and pulled Jack onto his lap before saying “Fun Jack, not funner and you really don’t okay, besides, I think you’re perfect just the way you are, right?” “Yeah”  
Keeping Jack comfortably on his lap, he said: “okay, what else do you guys want to know?”

“Are you really an only child? I think one of them mentioned you were his brother or something” “Not exactly, I grew up as one, though, I have 2 older, biological brothers. I was adopted by my mom’s sister, Diana and her husband William, at birth, while Alex and Scott stayed with my biological father.” Just then the door slammed open “Hey Pidge where are ya...” Scott turned from locking the door behind them and looked up to see what had stopped his younger brother in his tracks. He froze with his hand already reaching towards his glasses while Alex's hands were glowing with charge, staring down the barrels of 6 guns aimed right at him and his brother.


	3. Chapter 3 - Brothers With the X-Men

_He froze with his hand already reaching towards his glasses while Alex's hands were glowing with charge, staring down the barrels of 6 guns aimed right at him and his brother._

Spencer sprung back into action sliding out from under Jack, saying “Guys guns down, they’re FINE! Alex! Pull your power in, I don’t need a hole in my wall and Scott, glasses on, just take a breath. As I was literally just saying, these are my brothers, Scott has the glasses and is the oldest, Alex doesn’t and is the middle child. They’re fine, put your guns away!” Slowly all the guns clicked back into holsters and Alex and Scott sat down on the rather large couch next to Remy while Spencer sank back to his spot on the couch before quickly saying “ALEX, SCOTT, this is my FBI TEAM, REMY told me you guys might be coming down tonight.” trying to emphasize their real names, not their code ones since his team was here and he hadn’t yet had a chance to figure out how they’d react. “Though if anyone in this family could check their texts, you wouldn’t have shown up until later tonight, lovely entrance as always Alex,” he grumbled. “I was just telling the team about you guys which I wouldn’t have had to do if you three idiots hadn’t called and left messages on my FBI Work PHONE!”

“Wait” Derek questioned “Pretty Boy, were you never going to tell us about your family?” “Uhm well, I don’t really have the right to claim them, publicly, and I just didn’t think it would be a good idea.” Scott got up and shoved Remy over a seat before pulling Spencer into him, where he actually seemed to… relax? That confused the team. “God sherlock, pa was wrong to tell you that. He was wrong to give you away, you didn’t kill mom, if anyone it was the doctors, you wanna blame them?” “They killed her trying to save MY LIFE Scott, the Colonel was right, how’s it anyone but my fault.” “You were a baby, genius maybe, but even genius babies can’t do anything, it was NOT YOUR FAULT.” “It is though, I’m the reason the colonel lost his wife, you and Alex grew up motherless, I don’t deserve to be a Summers,” he said with a little sob. “Hey, I claim you more than that baboon over there that’s for sure” Spencer let out a little laugh “well anything’s better than that…” Alex roared “ExcUSE ME! Anything’s better than me hmm?” He said trying to push off the couch. Remy put his hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down with a burst of calm exhaustion. “Fuck you Remy and your fucking emotions” “You really want to get in a fight w' Penny with his whole team watching.” Scott and Spencer straightened up, having forgotten the team was in the room.

“Sorry guys, that’s a long debate between me and my brothers, what was I explaining earlier?” “Uh that you had two brothers and what they’re names were.” Garcia prompted him. “Right, Scott's older than me by 8 years, Alex by 5. They’re both Summers’ like the Colonel. I took Reid like William for the simplicity of explanations. Um obviously by the little show when they got here, we’re all mutants. They both live in New York, along with Remy.” Emily looked at Scott “Do you wear sunglasses inside because you have the same photosensitivity or whatever as Reid? I don’t know if I shouldn’t ask that but I really don’t know much about how powers work.” Scott let out a little laugh “It’s fine, I would rather you ask than just judge off something you don’t understand. No, they’re not like Sherlock’s, I was in an accident when I was 8, with my mom who was pregnant at the time with Spencer, that’s what killed her, not Spencer, though he won’t believe that because of Pa,” Spencer opened his mouth to protest and in true older brother fashion, Scott slapped a hand over his mouth before continuing “It wasn’t his fault despite whatever he says, but I had minor brain damage from the accident and can’t turn my power off unless I wear these, my visor, or close my eyes, so I don’t think you’d like to see what happens if I take them off.” Spencer chimed in “yeah please don’t, I don’t need a hole blasted in my wall.” Scott shrugged “As you wish.” Rossi’s jaw visibly dropped and Spencer stared at him, “what?” Knowing the least amount of people in the room spoke Italian he changed languages before continuing, _“Scott indossa una visiera a causa dei suoi poteri distruttivi, Alex ovviamente ha esplosioni simili nelle sue mani in base al loro ingresso e Remy non voleva che i "federali" li incontrassero, non perché sono mutanti ma perché sono "terroristi" al governo, Ciclope, Havok e Gambit. Corretta?_ ” (Scott wears a visor because of his destructive powers, Alex obviously has similar blasts in his hands based on their entrance, and Remy didn't want 'feds' to meet them, not because they're mutants but because they're 'terrorists' to the government, Cyclops, Havok, and Gambit. Correct?) Emily’s jaw dropped as well when Spencer’s eyes widened and he replied _“sì, Non volevo che la squadra lo sapesse”_ (Yes, I didn’t want the team to know). _“Non crediamo tutti in quella classificazione, penso che vorrebbero solo una spiegazione."_ (We don't all believe that classification, I think they would just want an explanation.)” Spencer nodded. _"dì loro quello che hai appena detto e vedi chi lo capisce più velocemente"_ (tell them what you just said and see who figures it out fastest).  
Rossi turned back to the team and continued in English, “Reid said I could tell you so… Scott wears a visor because of his destructive powers, Alex obviously has similar blasts in his hands based on their entrance, and Remy didn't want 'feds' to meet them, that's what he said in french at the end of his phone call, not because they're mutants but because they're 'terrorists' to the government, and Reid said he didn't tell us because he didn't think it would be a good idea for us to meet them...” Morgan said “Oh My God! You’re not just mutants, you’re X-Men.” The whole team gasped and Garcia went to say, or probably shriek something, but Hotch butted in then “So when you tell the ‘leader of a special organization’ something you’re telling the X-Men when you think there’s a mutant unsub local police can’t handle.” Spencer nodded sheepishly and Scott nodded before adding with a little wave “He calls me if he thinks that your suspect is a mutant that we'll need to help with. I'm Cyclops, field leader for the X-Men.” Alex waved “Havok and best Summers brother” All 3 others snorted and Scott pointed to Remy “Gambit” and then pointed to Spencer “Bolt”

Derek paused “Wait Reid, you’re part of the X-Men, not just friends with them?!”


	4. Chapter 4 - More Explanations Needed

_Derek paused “Wait Reid, you’re part of the X-Men, not just friends with them?!”_

Spencer shrunk back against the couch, “Not anymore, well occasionally, only when there’s like some really bad mutant terrorists trying to like take over the world or something and they need my help. Or if they need my powers specifically, though since we’re brothers, that’s usually rare because we all have similar powers.” Remy laughed “Always t’ought dat funny Remy, a fed dat surrounds himself wit’ terrorists.” “Supposed terrorists,” Scott interrupted. “Right Fearless, supposed, not technically classified dat way yet. Y'all and yer need fo’ evidence. Oh well, works for us bcuz y’all ain’t gettin’ any more dan ya a’ready ‘ave.” “Yeah,” Alex added “we’re not the terrorists, if anyone, that's Eric but even he’s not all bad some days.”

Garcia bounced a little before rushing out “Ok I’ve waited for soo long, what can you do Spencer!? And the rest of you guys too!?!... Oh, wait was that rude? I’m really really sorry if it was.” Scott smiled “Like I told Ms. Prentiss, I believe, earlier, I’d rather you ask than judge based off misinformation, that’s a lot of what we do at the mansion is try and enlighten people on rumors, Ms. Garcia.” Derek narrowed his eyes suspiciously, “How do you know our names?” “Calm down” Spencer sighed “They’re my brothers, obviously I’m going to tell them about the people I spend almost every moment of my life with.” “Oh yeah, sorry” “You’re fine Mr. Morgan,” Scott continued kindly “I’m aware you’re very protective of my little brother, which I appreciate by the way since he seems to try to get into trouble wherever he goes.” “Ain’t that true.” Morgan scoffed, his suspicion easing. Scott continued, “though now that you know who we are, I’m sure you have a vague idea of what we can all do from our FBI files, though nothing exists on Spencer or the existence of an unknown member who might be him correct? We’ve worked very hard to make sure no connections can be traced to him.” He queried towards Hotch and Rossi. “As far as I’ve seen, no” Hotch answered, “I believe that’s why we were so surprised when you included his code name in your introductions.”

“Okay, thank you, anyways Ms. Garcia, I have optic blasts in my eyes that destroy pretty much anything in their path. Alex has a nearly identical red type of energy but he can release it out of his hands, and has voluntary control over his. Remy is an empath along with having a kinetic charge.” Derek snorted “for the scientific idiots please?” Spencer simply replied “A kinetic charge, he has an explosive power in him that he can feed into an object and” Alex cut him off “he wanted simpler not a scientific lecture” before turning to Derek “Remy’s an empath and can also blow shit up, better?” Derek laughed and nodded but Spencer reached over and slapped Alex. “What the he…” Remy slapped a hand over his mouth this time. “What!?” Spencer pointed “kids” “and what’d I do?” Remy sighed, “ _Merde_ , don’t swear but if you’re gonna, don’t do it in English, change languages.” “Oh sorry Agent Jareau, Agent Hotchner, my apologies” But, before they could say anything Jack piped up “It’s okay Mr. Alex, I know not to say that and Henry’s too little, sometimes Uncle Dave and Uncle Derek say bad stuff too” Alex laughed, “Just Alex is fine kid” and Hotch and JJ glared at the two offending men before saying “really you two, he’s a child and he can pinpoint exactly who says the most bad words” Rossi shrugged and Derek just raised his hands innocently.

Trying to move the conversation on, Spencer added “and as for me my mutation is energy-based like my brothers but I can create, manipulate, and absorb light energy instead of the red energy Alex and Scott have. I also have a secondary mutation, I’m an empath just like Remy. We don’t know why Alex and Scott’s are so similar while mine uses a completely different type of energy and I got a secondary mutation while they didn’t and I also have a healing factor similar to the Wolverine’s just not as strong. Our guess is the healing factor is strengthened by my light energy, which makes the cells heal faster.”

Garcia said “Can we see? Please, Reid?” “What? My power? Which one?” He asked, before looking at Scott who nodded and said: “whatever you want to show them is your choice, they already know what they know about us, so you’re not giving away any secrets.” Spencer nodded and looked back at Garcia and when she said: “I don’t know, can we see all of them?” Spencer smiled gently, “Yeah, I’ll show them but you really shouldn’t just ask someone what they can do or to show you what their powers are, especially if you don’t know them, they’ll probably think you’re mocking them.” “Oh No! I’m so sorry I wasn’t meaning to, I swear!” “It’s fine Penelope, I’m more than willing to show you because you’re not asking maliciously, but I know you and you’re inquisitive, so I’m just giving you a piece of advice.” “Oh yeah, okay. Can I see though?” She asked kind of shyly at the end. Spencer nodded and said “Okay, so my energy is the easiest to show, I can technically use it offensively but that’s not really my personality, as you know, so I tend to stick to defensive uses. I can turn it into a type of laser of sorts for offensive” *demonstrates powerful beam of light before shrinking it* “in pretty much any shape or size and strength, or I can put up a defensive shield so strong it’s bulletproof.” *casts shield out in front of him* “I can also just use it for amusing purposes like a flashlight or fun little colored bubbles, which is actually the first thing I accidentally did.” He made a little light bubble before separating it into a lot of different pieces and sending them towards the team. “You can touch them right now, I insulated the electricity for them so you can feel and Jack, you want to try and grab that green one in front of you?” Jack reached out and tapped it and it pushed forwards before he reached out with two hands and pulled it in towards him playing with it a little. Spencer continued “for most of those bubbles I left them simple so you can pass your hand through it, I sort of hardened the edges of the buffer on Jack’s though, so he could play with it almost like a balloon or bouncy ball.” “Uncle Spence, this is so cool!” Spencer smiled and all the bubbles except Jack’s disappeared, and Spencer looked to Hotch “You don’t care if I just leave that hovering for him to play with right?” Hotch smiled before gazing happily at his son “of course, not Reid, he seems to love it, it’s a new interesting toy for him, and if you say it’s safe I trust you.” Spencer’s smile lit up his face “Thank you.” “You thought this was going to change that?” “You never know.” Spencer shrugged. “Aww my boy genius,” Garcia said, “this just makes you even more special, it’s cool!” Spencer laughed, “Okay um, my healing…” He looked around for a minute before pulling out his keys with a pocket knife on it and making sure Jack was still distracted, cutting a vertical inch long slat on his arm. Cringing a little in pain before straightening his face out. Remy looked at him “you didn’t have to do it so dramatically, _cher_.” The whole team gasped and various cries of “Reid!” and “Oh My God, why did you do that?” Remy laughed “jus’ watch _mon amis”_ they did and before their eyes, the bleeding slowed and the skin started to scab. “It’s not instant like Lo-Wolverine’s would be, but it’s pretty good. And I can’t regenerate from a drop of blood either, it's like the healing process just sped up for me, so I might still get a scar but that will be completely healed in a couple of hours.” The team nodded and he continued “And my empathy, the most controversial one. I just want you all to know I have never, nor would I ever without your express permission, do anything to influence or alter any emotions you may be feeling. I have on occasion read your or a suspect’s emotions to try and better understand social cues since we all know how great I am in social situations.” The whole team laughed a little “though it doesn't help me know how to respond to whatever I can feel, I at least have a better idea of what people are feeling.” “Is there any way for you to show us that, Reid?” Prentiss asked. “Uhmm yeah…” All of a sudden Alex started slumping over and his eyes started fluttering closed and he looked exactly like a little kid trying desperately not to take a nap, most of the team thought privately. “Hmmm, screww youuu pidge, staaaap, mmm not t’red.” Spencer snorted, “Sure, you kinda look that way to me though.” “I wasssn’t, I swear.” He slowly straightened back up and blinked, clearing the haze from his eyes “Screw you Pidge, seriously, you had to demonstrate on me.” Spencer looked to the team while Remy and Scott snickered, “That’s all I can think of as a demonstration of it and Remy happens to have that as one of his powers also. That was one of the things that initially drew us to each other is that so much of relationships is trying to understand feelings and the other person, but our empathy helps give us a deeper connection there. And in case it wasn’t clear, I basically just fed sleepiness, lethargy, and complete exhaustion all at once to Alex so you would see it happen faster. Obviously he could tell what I was doing because he’s been around me so long he can somewhat know when the emotions he feels don’t make sense to him, such as when he’s being a _connard_ as Rems would say, and one of the two of us calm him down, and the 3 of us have some type of odd brotherly bond where none of our, energy-based, at least powers, can hurt the others. Like I could blast either of them with my laser and they would just sit there. It’s something that Beast, the X-Men’s doctor, and scientist, has been studying pretty recently actually after we happened to mention it in a conversation in the mansion.” “The mansion…?” Rossi questioned. “The X-Men school and base location,” Remy said succinctly, with a ‘you’re not getting any more information’ tone of voice. Rossi just nodded though. The questions and casual conversation continued into the night for a bit, before both Jack and Henry were out on the living room floor and the adults were fading too. As the next day was a rare off day with no cases needing attention so they had all been willing to stay up a little bit later than normal.


	5. Chapter 5 - DNA Confusion

It was a slow morning for everyone in Reid’s house the next morning, with no one in there being a morning person. Everyone was moving slowly with coffee before settling into the living room to lounge and watch some TV when Spencer’s cell rang. He smiled a little seeing who it was. “It’s Beast,” he relayed to the rest of the people in his home, before settling in for one of the intriguing conversations about various scientific things they often had when Hank was bored, or stuck in an experiment and needed a similar mind to bounce things off of. “Hey Hank, what can I do for you?” “I actually had something to tell you today, but first Alex and Scooter are down in DC with you right?” “Yeah, I’m sitting in the living room with them and Remy right now. Why? Do you need to talk to them?” “Uhm no, I actually have something that I’m not totally sure how you’re going to react to but I would suggest you go to a different room than them.” “Ookay… Alright, I’m in my bedroom now but they all looked kind of suspicious so I’m not sure how long I have until Remy comes looking for me.” “I’ll try to be quicker about this then. You’re aware that certain mutants seem to stand out, even among other mutants, they seem to have an extensive list of powers, are incredibly powerful, you know what I mean.” “Right, I think they’re sometimes called Tri-mutants or something similar, and it suggests that somehow the person has 3 biological parents, two men and a woman, only possible if a man’s uh stuff stays in the woman latent and then she gets pregnant via another man, quickly after, and then both combine into one egg from what I’ve read on it.” “Right well, um, the blood I took from you and your brothers, I just got around to testing various things, trying to see why your energy differs, maybe why you have your healing power and empathy while they don’t, you get the idea.” “Right, that’s why we let you do it, to compare things in our DNA, what’s that have to do with anything?” “Uhm well, I think that, well you are, uhm you are one.”

“I’m a what! You’re trying to seriously tell me that I have a third parent that no one knows about? That what, that's why the colonel hates me so much, my mom was cheating on him and he didn’t think I was his!?” “Spencer, I wouldn’t have even suggested this to you if I wasn’t positive, I triple checked the results. I was able to isolate parts of you and your brothers’ DNA to what likely came from your mom and father, but in yours, there was some male DNA I could not assign to your father, it was genetically impossible to have come from him or your mother. I’m not sure if this would be good for you or not, but you might have another father who would care about you, might want to meet you, obviously only if you want to though, I’m sure the professor could find him.” “I’m sorry Hank, I shouldn’t have yelled at you, and I do trust the science for your tests, it was definitely a shock though. But what’s to say they even want to meet me, they could be some major mutant hater for all I know who would try to kill me?! I can’t possibly try to meet them. This is so confusing.” “I’m sure Spencer, that’s why I suggested you go to a room alone, then you control if you tell, and who or when I do think you shouldn’t let this come between you and your brothers. And if it’s your wish I won’t check your DNA against any in mutant databases, obviously they’re very incomplete but there’s always a chance, I haven’t yet but I can if you would ever like me to, and it’s possible they dislike mutants, but honestly unlikely, they have to be a mutant themselves for this to have occurred.” “I suppose that’s true, and maybe soon Hank, but not right now, it’s too new.” “Of course my young Doctor.” “But what if I tell Scott or Alex, and they think I’m making it all up, trying to ruin their image of their mom because I didn’t get to grow up with them, what if” Hank interrupted “Calm down Spencer, I’m sure Remy’s checking on your emotions, if you get too worked up he’ll no doubt be in, in a flash. As for your brothers, I think you should give them a chance, they have never demonstrated anything other than brotherly love or affection for you, I don’t think this would change that.” “But I’m basically telling them our mom wasn’t so perfect as they remember, I could never do that to them by telling them she cheated on the colonel. If it wasn’t going to affect Alex or Scott I would be fighting not to rub it in his face, but I would never do that to my brothers. Wait, are they even technically my brothers any more, I still think of them that way, what if they hate me now and don’t want to be my brothers any more, I don’t know what to do Hank. I can’t think about that right now, I need science, facts. What can you tell me about the unmatched DNA?” “Not a ton, my young friend, without knowing who it may be or their powers themselves, but it is likely that you got your healing ability from them since those traits appear nowhere at all in your mother or other father and that is not very common to occur randomly. The light versus red energy, I do not know yet, that could have been simply a different combination of your mother and father’s genes than Scott got and Alex happened to get a similar combination. As for your empathy, it could have come from your unknown father as well or occurred randomly, it’s hard to know.” “Of course Hank, thank you for telling me, I think I’m going to go back and tell them, I’d rather have their reactions now that sit and fret over them, besides Remy would be able to tell anyway and would just pester me, so I’m sure you’ll receive calls from them as well. Though I do have one other question for you.” “And what’s that?” “My intelligence, Alex and Scott are both smart on their own, even if not to the same level as me as much as I hate talking about it, could it be that my third parent’s combined intelligence with my mom and the colonel contributed to that?” “Honestly, my young friend, I don’t know. As you know it’s quite rare and very few come forward as one because they don’t want to be taken to be tested on for being a mutant or Tri-mutant especially. Either way is possible though.” “Okay Hank, thanks, I’ll talk to you later.” “Goodbye Spencer”

Reid walked back out to the living room to three very interested looks. “So um, obviously that was Hank, and um he’s been doing some testing and comparisons between our blood.” Both Scott and Alex nodded but Scott asked, “but if it concerns us then why did he only want to tell you because he obviously told you to leave the room.” “Um, it only sort of concerns you, it more affects me, and he wasn’t sure how I’d react so yes he suggested I go be by myself for a little while, and I wasn’t sure about telling you guys right away but Hank encouraged me to so here we go. Um, he was taking apart our DNA to compare why our energies differ while your guys’ are nearly identical, why I ended up with more powers, etc. and um well he thinks um no I think he knows that, um well, I’m a Tri-Mutant.” Spencer could feel the shock and confusion rolling off everyone in waves before Alex exclaimed “what! But that shouldn’t be possible unless mom, she no she never would have cheated, but, no, I don’t even know what to say.” Spencer was quick to jump in before saying “I know and I’m so sorry and that’s why I wasn’t sure about telling you guys, I never wanted to ruin the image you guys have of mom and I can’t help but wonder if the colonel knew and thought I wasn’t his and so that’s why he sent me away? I don’t know but I’m so, so sorry.” Scott was quick to react then jumping up and sitting next to Spencer before pulling into his side. “Hey, none of this is your fault, so don’t you dare go blaming yourself. It’s just who you are and we love you just the same as ten minutes ago so don’t go thinking we don’t want to be your brother anymore or any other insanity, even if mom had cheated on dad and it resulted in you it still wouldn’t be your fault. Got me?” Spencer nodded before saying “I didn’t really want to come out and say it but Scott you said even if she cheated, I think she had to have, I don’t know of any other way for this to have been possible.” Scott blushed cherry red then and said um yeah you wouldn’t have and I doubt Alex would’ve known either but um, up till mom’s death they were, god I had completely buried and forgotten all these memories and now I’m seeing them all again ughh, um they were sexually… adventurous, and very...open.” Alex said, “Umm, I’m really confused by what you mean.” Scott groaned “I had completely forgotten all of these memories until this conversation but um, there were multiple times when Alex and I were little before Spencer was born obviously that I um had walked in on the two of them with another person, usually a woman but sometimes a man. God, I must’ve accidentally walked in on them 6 or 7 times. And they never noticed, not once. I never told them what I saw because even at 5 or 6 I got the idea it wasn’t something I should’ve seen. So um, mom wasn’t cheating on dad, she likely got pregnant with you during one of those um times.” Both Spencer and Alex blushed heavily, even Remy seemed a little awkward before saying “well _cher_ maybe this be your new chance, da universe evenin’ out, you’ve never had a good _pere_ , William was a _connard_ and da Colonel never cared one whit fo’ ya, mebe dis be your chance fo a good parent. And I know ya loved Diana, and she be a good _mere_ , she did her best, but you had to raise yaself ya know, you never had a good parent to raise you, an if ya don’t, believe me, I’ll call Wolvie fo ya, we all know how protective he is of ya, and ya grown now, but what if dey never knew ‘bout you, wouldn’t ya want to know. And I know ya _cher_ ya just gon’ worry ‘bout dis ‘till ya know so why don’t you have Hank try to find ya pere, ya never hafta look fo ‘im or talk ta ‘im if ya don’t want ta but den ya know.” Both Alex and Scott nodded and before Alex could speak Spencer said: “no, you definitely don’t need to call Logan, he’d be down on his motorcycle before you could hang up if he thought I was hurting or something.”

Alex spoke then, “You should find out pidge, I know dad was good to us but you didn’t deserve what he gave you, maybe Rem’s right, maybe this is the universe’s try to get it right this time.” Spencer nodded, “Yeah, I think you’re right, I told Hank I didn’t want to know, but I think I should, then I won’t wonder and I can just decide if I want to meet him or not.” Remy looked devious for a minute before offering up “Ya know Penny, what if Logan was ya other pere, it’d explain why he’s so protective of ya, probably the feral part of him.” “Oh god, I don’t even know whether to say whether I’d like or hate that.” Spencer laughed “On one hand he’d be an amazing father and we know he probably wouldn’t hate me because he’s already kind of father-y and protective of me, but on the other hand, I’ve told him things I would never tell a parent, things you, Remy, probably know, but I never told even Alex or Scott.” Remy looked sad for a minute before saying “I know what ya mean _cher_ , I lived that life, trustin’ almost no one on the streets, ‘till Jean-Luc taught me what a _pere’s_ really s’posed to be like. Ya supposed to be able to tell them that stuff that hurt ya, dat’s what I mean, ya ain't neve’ had a good _pere_ to trust like that or to teach ya bought being a man or a parent. Ya turned out perfect anyways _cher_ but it might be nice to have someone there for ya like dat.” Alex smiled before saying in his traditional Alex way, “so now that the mushy stuff’s done, and it is for now but we’re gonna come back to that keeping secrets from me and Scott thing, and you know we still love you,... Hank tell you anything else that he found that was cool?” “Um not really, he had a couple of guesses on my powers and how my healing power is likely from the other father, the energy differences seem like just a different combination from your guys’ but that it still seems to match mom and the Colonel, and that you two probably just got lucking in how similarly yours evolved. But, he really didn’t know about the empathy, said without knowing who the 3rd parent is he wouldn’t really be able to know if it was a random mutation or passed down.” “Why don’t ya call him now _cher_ , let him get started looking.” Spencer nodded and pulled out his phone and redialed Hank before putting it on speaker “Spencer? How’d it go?” “Good Hank, you were right, they were completely fine with it, and also you’re on speaker with everyone else too.” “Quite alright my young friend, and I’m glad. Also, hello Remy, Scott, Alex.” They all bid him “hello’s” before Spencer spoke up, “Hank, we all talked and I was thinking I might like to know who my 3rd parent is. I don’t know if I’d meet them or even tell them, but Remy pointed out I’d just worry pointlessly so I think it’d be good to know.” “I will get right on it and get back to you if I can find out who it is.” “Thanks, Hank” Spencer replied before hanging up.  
After a moment of silence Spencer looked thoughtful for a second before asking “You all mentioned coming down on a potential case soon, what’s that about?” Remy grumbled, “work, work work, you and Scotty need a break, seriously.” Scott smiled though “right, so basically we were informed of a mutant in the DC area who….” They talked for a little while before Alex interrupted Spencer’s newest ramble, “Okay, God, I’m hungry, anyone else up for food.” They nodded and went to a new café that had opened and the brothers all sat down while Remy went to place orders for all four of them.  
Barely 2 minutes after Remy had returned to the table to wait, Emily, JJ, and Penelope all walked in and looked around for a table before spotting all the guys and wandering over. “Hey guys,” Emily started “Fancy seeing you here.” Spencer nodded “Yeah Alex was STARVING so we figured we’d try this place since it was so new and popular. The girls laughed before JJ said, “yeah we were out on a girls day and thought the same thing.” Remy flashed a flirty smile before kindly inquiring “what fun did you all do today?” Emily asked, “first, you guys mind if we crash your lunch outing?” Spencer looked around before saying “Of course, there’s plenty of room.”

They sat down while JJ went to get them all some food and Penelope said: “Yes, we’ve had lots of fun, we saw a movie and went shopping in the new mall on the outskirts of town.” Barely 3 minutes later in the midst of their chatter, Jack, Rossi, and Hotch walked in and the whole group laughed when they made eye contact. The three wandered over and Scott smiled at Jack who grinned before looking to the adults and saying, “You can join us if you’d like, we were all here when the ladies showed up and joined us” Emily said jokingly “Yeah we haven’t seen you in a good 10 hours, we just desperately needed the reunion.” Hotch said “we’d love to, we can just pull another table over, we were on our way home from soccer and instead of going back to Rossi’s for lunch we thought we’d try out a new place.” Spencer laughed “We just wanted to try a new place, and the girls said the same thing, must’ve been an attractive idea.” About 5 minutes later, Emily burst out laughing before groaning out, “Oh my god” and dropping her head to the table. Everyone looked at her curiously, “What?” “Look at the door.” She said. Everyone turned and burst out laughing at the sight of Derek Morgan, clearly right after a run. He noticed the whole group and came over before asking “what whole team outing without me? I’m hurt” Penelope gave him a hug before dragging him into the empty seat next to her and saying “Never hot stuff, Reid and them were here first because apparently Alex was starving so they wanted to try somewhere new, Us girls were having a girls day and wanted to try somewhere new but saw them when we got here, Hotch, Rossi, and Jack wanted to try somewhere new after Jack’s soccer win and showed up here like 5 minutes before you got here. So what about you?” “First off, Nice Job Jack, high 5 on winning your soccer game, and what about me?” Hotch said, “Garcia told you why we all showed up here, what about you?” “Oh, I was out on a run and went a little further than I was planning so I figured I’d stop for lunch at the new cafe I’d been meaning to try before heading on home.” Remy joked, “Ya know, Remy knows y’all spend a lot a time t’get’er but dat’s jus’ weird how y’all came to de same place wit’in 10 minutes a each ot’er.” They all laughed and shared a nice, stress-free lunch and as they were finishing up Rossi spoke up, “You know Aaron and Jack were going to come back to my place for dinner, why don’t you all come to, finish off a nice day off, JJ you could go back home and grab Henry and Will, and Spencer, you’re brothers and Remy can all come too.” Everyone decided that they’d love that idea and JJ questioned “is your pool good to use? Because as soon as I tell him we’re going to Uncle Dave’s he’s going to want to go swimming.” As soon as she said swimming Jack looked up from where he’d been distracted by Spencer “we’re going swimming in Uncle Dave’s pool?!” Hotch shook his head and Dave said: “that’s fine, everyone can bring their suits if they want to come over right away, we’ll make a party of it.” Emily smiled and joked “well obviously, we’ll need to work off the pasta calories somehow and I’m not dating, nor am I Derek Morgan so swimming works for me.” Derek slapped a hand to heart and acted offended, while the rest of the adults at the table burst out laughing. JJ punched his shoulder and said, “The truth hurts, and single or not, try having a little kid and literally nothing can happen without them trying to interrupt you, so swimming sounds great, thanks, Dave.” The whole group laughed before separating and heading out.


	6. Chapter 6 - Your Dad Is...

Everyone showed up to Dave’s later that night and they had a blast of a party with everyone playing around in the pool and with the kids. Will and Remy were having lots of fun chatting with each other and joking about the other one after Will had made a crack about Remy moving from New Orleans to New York and that he still couldn’t get to the right side of the law, and that he’d like to know what the lovely FBI would think watching their supposed “terrorists” just acting like regular people having a good time. To which Remy had indignantly responded “Hey, Remy’s on de…, well mostly, on de right side of de law. Ain’t his fault y’all got de bunch o’ _connards_ up dere callin’’ us terrorists” Spencer had jokingly joined in “You do realize you just pointed that out while surrounded by my whole team of federal agents right, and that you’re talking to a DC Cop.” “And, if dey was gonna arrest us dey woulda done it last night, and ya prob’ly wouldn’t still be a federal agent.” Hotch, had relaxed and was smiling and joking around for once added: “uh uh, not on a day off people, we’re not at work right now and I don’t care about work right now.” The whole team looked exaggeratedly at Hotch and Morgan said: “you feelin’ okay Hotch, you actually ya know, sound normal.” Hotch glared and said, “is that better Morgan, I can give you extra paperwork on Monday if you’d like. So maybe I had a beer or two, I’m fine.” The entire team was slowly leaning that direction, definitely not drunk, but all had had a drink or two and were much looser and more relaxed than normal.

Except for Spencer, which of course Derek noticed. “Hey pretty boy, you should have a drink for once, I know you don’t like to when we go out to a bar but we’re at Rossi’s, you got your boyfriend to make sure you don’t do anything stupid and tomorrows still a weekend so just relax.” Spencer laughed before holding up his hand that had been behind his back which held a beer bottle, “thanks for the permission Morgan, but one of the downsides of my healing ability is I can’t get drunk unless I chug about 3 bottles of vodka in like 15 minutes, pretty hard to do. I’ve actually been drinking all night, I just didn’t before because it would’ve been hard to explain that despite drinking however much, I was still perfectly sober.” “Ohhhh” “Yeah”  
After dinner, everyone headed to Rossi’s living room and he offered everyone to stay the night since habit had them all with a go-bag in their cars anyway. Will had a change of clothes that he kept in his car for the gym and the kids both had clothes for after swimming. Reid, having almost expected this, had added a set of clothes to his care for each of the other 3 guys and everyone was good to spend the night, so they all agreed and relaxed on the couch. After a while of random chatter, Derek asked Spencer, “you know I don’t know why but I just thought about this you can see the family resemblance between the 3 of you and I heard Alex ramble a little on the phone and we’ve all heard your lectures but is it a family thing, does Scott do it too… wow, that was a really random question.” Alex, Spencer, and Remy all burst out laughing which caused Scott to pout. Spencer regained his breath first and said ”Yes that was very random, but yeah, Scott’s probably the worst with his lectures. “Hey they’re important, I need something to keep an entire group of immature children from killing each other, or innocent people on a mission because they forgot something important.” “We got it!” They all interrupted causing Scott to sulk again. Alex piped up, “Yeah, he has like 100 different lectures that cover everything from not killing each other, to fighting, to training, to listening to the professor and proper etiquette when we go to rallies.” Remy added, “Yeah, po’ Remy usually gets de old tardiness speech.” “Poor Remy! Maybe if you were on time for once in your life!” “Yeah Remy gets it, he don’t know why you repeat so often ‘do when not’in’ changes.” “Because eventually, you’ll realize that I set times for a reason and” “Good God!” the other three cut him off but noticing the curious looks from the team continued in unison “When I set a time for you to arrive, I expect you to be here at that time. Not five minutes later, not five seconds later. On time. There is a reason we set these times and if everyone simply showed up when they wished, nothing would ever be started on time and therefore nothing would ever be done.” Alex added “It goes on, but we’ll save you that. But there’s Scott lectures on the whole for you." Scott just mumbled “you are all so rude.” while the whole team burst out laughing and Derek said, “Yep, got the resemblance now.”

A little while later Spencer’s phone rang and he checked it kind of nervously before paling a little and clicking the answer button. “Hey Hank, that was kind of fast, did you find a match already on the DNA?” Hank paused and breathed out heavily for a second before saying “um yeah, yeah I did, I have a DNA match for your third parent.” “You sound really nervous, please don’t say it’s actually some terrorist or something or Sabretooth or someone.” At that line even more than just his brothers and Remy were watching, it seemed like a lot of the adults had started paying attention to Spencer’s half of the phone call, when he looked up he noticed the people looking and as Hank laughed and said “no, it’s not a bad person” Spencer said “hang on Hank, I’m going to go to a different room really fast” “Um before you do that, do you know if you’re going to tell your brothers or Remy who it is.” “Yeah, I was thinking I would tell them, Hank you’re making me really nervous.” “I’m sorry, that was not my intention Spencer, but if you’re going to tell them anyway you might want to put it on speaker, I think it might help for me to tell them.” “Uh, my whole team is here Hank so it’s not just X-men” “Oh you finally told them? I’m so happy for you my young doctor!” “Yeah, all three of them called my work phone and my team heard so we explained everything last night, I hadn’t said anything about this morning's development yet. But anyways should I still put it on speaker?” “If you trust them and have told them everything other than this morning I don’t see why not, but it’s up to you.” “Okay, I will just give me a sec Hank” he pressed mute and looked up and said “I’m going to put this on speaker so Scott, Alex, and Remy can hear, I’ll explain everything after the call okay?” They nodded but Derek asked “What new development this morning are you talking about?” Emily hit his shoulder “Are you deaf he just said he’d explain after the call.” Spencer nodded and unmuted his phone before putting it on speaker.

Scott spoke for everyone and said, “Hey, Hank, we can hear you now, so you already found a match for the 3rd parent?” “Uhm Yes, Scott, I did, um I ran Spencer’s DNA through the machine in its entirety and highlighted the unidentifiable information…” Alex cut him off “Hank I love you but if I wanted the science I would’ve asked pidge.” “Right, my apologies” “You’re fine Hank,” Spencer said with a glare at Alex “my brother’s being an idiot, please continue. “Right so it processed for about 5 hours so the machine could record the details of your DNA and um I got a hit, very quickly actually.” “Okayyy” Spencer said nervously “I know you said it’s not a bad person but I’m still getting nervous” “Um, so obviously I got hits off of your two known parents and the third was well, Logan.” “Excuse me, please repeat that because I’m sure I didn’t just hear you tell me that Remy JOKINGLY guessed correctly,” Spencer said after he regained his ability to speak. “Your other father is Logan, Spencer. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not but he’s always been very paternal and protective of you. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t be happy with this news, but I will most certainly not tell him unless you tell me to do so.” “No please don’t, I mean, I’ve almost wished he were my dad sometimes but then he actually is, I just don’t know. Wait, is there any chance he already knew and that’s why he’s so protective?” “I don’t know Spencer, I’m sorry” Scott spoke up “I doubt he knows, we’ve chatted in my office late some nights and he’s mentioned once or twice that he always worried if he left behind any kids from the time he can’t remember and if he did what they would think if he abandoned them or whatever if he knew I think he would have definitely been involved in your life. And I doubt mom or dad would have said there’s a possibility that he might have from a one night stand because from what I remember, it was never the same person twice and I highly doubt they would’ve exchanged any kind of info to be able to contact him anyways.” “I agree with our leader, Spencer” Hank added, “I believe if Logan would have known he would’ve been involved in your life.” “Maybe, but this just doesn’t make any sense!” Spencer whined out. Remy pulled him into his side before saying “actually Penny, a lot of it do make sense. Ya healing ability, it’s jus’ like Wolvie’s but a lil’ less strong, we always compare it to his anyway. It’s like da 2.0 version of his. And ya empathy, it still might be random but ya know dat Wolvie can seem to smell emotions like happpiness and joy o’ fear, so it could be some adapted form o’ dat. But ya’ healin’ ability fo’ sure came from Logan. ‘Cause ya know his is just as strong on de inside as de out and yours is even stronger on de inside. I know I’ve joked befo’ dat it must suck bein’ de only two in de house dat can’t get drunk to ignore de chaos, even o’ter people dat can heal demselves don’t always have dat feature, it’s pretty special fo’ Wolvie and ya so it makes sense if ya got it from ‘im.” Spencer just though for a minute before saying “yeah, I think it actually does make sense, but Hank please don’t tell him until I’m ready.” “I most certainly will not my young Doctor, Goodbye Spencer.” The phone hung up and Reid put it away before looking up. “Logan? But how?” Alex said with a smirk “Well pidge... when our mom and dad went out to the bar… they found a guy to hook up with and… you got it from there?” “Shut the fuck up Alex yes I know how I just meant like Logan, shouldn’t I have realized it or something?” “There was no way for you to know Sherlock or should he have somehow known too?” “No, no one told him and” “And, exactly, no one told you either.”

Spencer looked towards his team “I’m guessing you guys are confused?” They all nodded and Spencer proceeded to explain everything they learned that morning and after answering some intermittent questions, finished with “and so Hank just called me to tell me that he got a hit for my 3rd parent and that it was Logan.” Penelope said, “I’m sorry, but who’s Logan?” “Um, Wolverine, Scott’s right hand and field lieutenent, and now that my idiot brother has realized Logan isn’t trying to steal his wife, best friend, and my personal confidant for just about everything that’s ever happened in my life.” Penelope paused before saying “So it seems like you really like him and you trust him, so why is it so bad that he is the one if it had to be someone?” “It’s not bad exactly, it’s just he knows literally everything, Georgia and the aftermath” At that Scott and Alex seemed confused while Remy just looked sad, “high school and the football field,” At that Remy spat out “de _connards_ ” “I’ve literally told him everything, I needed someone to tell all the stuff, bad and good, to, and now he’s my father, he’s going to be even more protective and I never would’ve told him half that stuff.” Hotch looked at Reid intently catching his attention before saying “maybe this is a good thing then, you have someone who knows everything and you can’t lie to, beyond just your brothers or Remy, and I try to be a good dad to Jack, I’m under no illusions that I’m perfect, but any of that, that’s the kind of thing you hope your child tells you, you wish they never went through it at all, but if they do you want them to tell you because you want to help them deal with it, you want to make everything okay again for them, so maybe it’s better that he already knows, you can’t try and hide the bad stuff in your life from him, because God knows you’ve had to do enough on your own in life.” Spencer nodded thoughtfully for a second before saying “I think you’re right, I hadn’t really thought about it that way, I was just thinking he would know all that and think ‘Wow, my son is messed up.’ Scott turned Spencer towards him before saying “You know Logan would never think that, if anything this will make his whole year, he’s always treated you like a son and now you really are.” Spencer nodded and Alex said, “man I thought we said we were done with all the mushy feely stuff today this morning.” Garcia who was reaching over to grab her drink hit his shoulder and said “quiet you, being emotional and feely is perfectly okay” Alex raised his hands up in surrender already knowing from years of stories that she could ruin his life in less time than it would take for him to say ‘I’m Sorry’.

The night went on and as it was getting later Spencer looked to Hotch and asked “Hey Hotch, I was wondering if I could take Monday off. I think I’m going to go to New York tomorrow morning, but I don’t know when I’ll be back. I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell Logan or not but I think he deserves to know. I feel like it would be worse if I waited and didn’t tell him, and I can’t do that to any of them, or Hank by not letting them tell Logan either.” Hotch nodded before saying, “I think that’s a good idea, Reid, I’ll get you the day off, can I call you if we end up having a case though since it’s just in case?” “Yeah, if I’m back in DC I’ll get right over and if I’m still in New York, I’ll fly out as soon as possible.” Hotch nodded and they both tuned back into the group’s discussion.


	7. Chapter 7 - Telling Logan

The next morning everyone came down to have breakfast at Rossi’s before heading their separate ways. Reid’s car left first, knowing they all had a bit of a drive ahead of them since they were just going to briefly stop at Reid’s apartment to get the car his brothers came in and grab their clothes before heading out. All four dumped most of their stuff in the car and Spencer decided to ride on Remy’s motorcycle he came down on. He didn’t know why, he just figured he was going to end up going straight out to a case on Monday and didn’t want to have to deal with a car up there, not to mention he didn’t really particularly like driving. He figured if he was coming back to DC he would just fly back, he could easily win back the money in one night at a casino the next time he went out to Vegas. The drive back to New York was fun with Spencer and Remy chatting the whole way and Spencer teasing Remy from behind him for a lot of the ride until Remy snapped “If you don't sit back and sit still Remy’s gonna pull over and fuck ya ‘cross his cycle right now. Ya want dat?” Spencer blushed before replying “no, but I do want you in me when we get to the mansion” “Ohh, Remy’s sure ya gon’ get dat _cher,_ dat’s not even a question.” Spencer blushed before sitting back and allowing Remy a break from his teasing. They got to the mansion well ahead of Alex and Scott who had called to say that “Alexandria is huungry so we’re gonna stop for a snack on the way, we’ll see you guys at the mansion.” Remy blasted up the driveway and parked in the garage before dragging Spencer up to his bedroom, fortunately not running into anyone on the way, though Spencer vaguely registered in the back of his mind that the professor or Jean had probably registered that he had shown up there. Remy shoved Spencer down on the bed before quickly following and grabbing his lips in a searing kiss. “You t’out it’d be funny ta tease Remy de whole way up, hmm? Damn ma Penny’s ready fo me a’ready ain’t he.” Spencer nodded frantically “Please Remy, please” “Well who’s Remy ta deny ya what ya want _cher”_ ..... An hour later they were both lying curled around each other happy and tired when a brief knock came on the door “Hey Rems, I heard you get home a bit ago, just wanted to know how de pups doin…” He trailed off as he fully stepped through the doorway and registered the smell that the room reeked of before his eyes landed on Spencer curled in on Remy asleep. “Shh Wolvie, Penny still be sleeping. He be good ‘dou, Scotty and Alex and Remy all finally met his team, Friday night, spent some time wit’ dem Saturday too.” A gentle smile pushed its way onto the wolverine’s face and he smoothed out Spencer’s hair before saying “I’m glad they know now, Scott already told me how it happened, it was eating him up inside trying to keep everything hidden from them though.” Remy nodded “Oui, it was, Remy t’inks dis be a good ting fo’ him, he was more happy and honest dan he’s been in a long time, it was good.” “I’m glad, why’s he back here with you though, he should have work tomorrow, he isn’t hurt or anything right?” “No, Penny be fine _mec_ , he’s got sometin’ he needs to talk to someun’ here ‘dou.” “Oh, who, is it bad, why hasn’t he told me anything?” “He will, Hank called and told him sometin’ yesterday while we was all at his house. And Remy dont t’ink it’s bad, depends on how de person reacts.” “Why you being so vague Rems, ohhh, it’s me he needs to talk to isn’t it?” Remy nodded “And Remy ain’t gonna tell ya notin’ Wolvie so don’t even try, it’s up to him when he wants ta talk to ya.” Logan nodded, “I’m gonna head to the kitchen, I’ll talk to ya later Rems.”

Spencer woke up about 30 minutes later, very happy to be curled into his lover still, he sighed before nuzzling in further which made Remy, who had just been watching him sleep peacefully, let out a little laugh. “Remy t’inks it mebe time ta get up _cher_ , Scotty and Alex been home for almost an hour already.” “But I’m comfy and you're warm.” “You’re like a lil’ lizard _cher”_ Remy laughed “always tryin’ ta curl up on someone warm or lay out in de sun.” “I’m not sure if I like that nickname too much” “Aww, but it’s cute _mon petit lézard_ ” “Yeah no, I don’t think so.” “Fine, ya no fun Penny.” Spencer just pushed himself up and gave Remy a quick little kiss “Forgiven?” he asked with a cute little pout. Remy laughed and rolled over before kissing Spencer again “always _cher.”_ They laid for a minute before Remy asked: “What’re ya gon’ do ‘bout tellin’ Wolvie, Spence?” “I don’t know, I need to tell him, but I don’t know how he’s going to react.” “Ya know Remy’ll go wit’ ya if ya want Penny, I’m sure Scotty or Alex would too if ya wanted, even Hank.” “Yeah, I don’t know, I think, I guess I feel like this should be me, I just don’t know exactly what I’m gonna say. I just need to get this over with, I think I’ll use Scott’s office, have a little barrier between us and the rest of the house just in case.” “Dat’s prob’ly a good idea _cher_ but Remy don’t t’ink it’s gon’ be a bad reaction.” “I hope not, but we’ll see.”

Spencer drug himself back out of bed and after a quick shower he got dressed before heading to find Scott. He went into his office and settled down on the couch and said, “I think I’m ready to tell Logan now so um, can I use your office?” “Yeah, of course, Sherlock, you want me to stay in here?” “No, Remy offered too, I think I want to do this alone.” “Okay, I’ll have Jean call him up here for you if you want?” “Yeah sure” With that, Scott left the room and Spencer curled up a little bit into one of the corners of Scott’s sofa, and when the door had finally opened, Spencer had almost worked himself into a state and his panic and honestly a little terror was easy for Logan to smell. It made the protective wolverine want to come out and harm whoever made him like this but knowing it was probably him that was the course of his pup’s fear was not easy to know. “Hey pup, Jean called me, said Scott had said you needed me up here?” He settled down on the other side of the sofa thinking Spencer might’ve wanted a little space to breathe. “Um, yeah, I um uh learned something yesterday that I uh wanted, well I needed to tell you. Um Scott, Alex, and Remy know because they were there when I found out, and so was my uh team but I don’t think they totally understand what I was talking about but um, I needed to tell you right away, it wouldn’t have felt right not to even if um, I’m not sure how you’ll react.” “Hey, whatever it is Spencer, it’s going to be okay, I know you worry people will always leave you, but I ain’t never gonna do that to you okay? You could tell me you were a freaking serial killer and needed to go into hiding and I’d be right there with you okay pup?” Spencer laughed a tiny bit which was what Logan had been hoping for “No it’s nothing like that, it might be a good thing or bad, I don’t know, well I think it might be a good thing, but I don’t know um…” “Hey Spencer, why don’t you tell me what’s wrong and we’ll go from there hmm? Was it something I did?” “No, um well not TO ME exactly.” “So what’s up?” “Um, you know what tri-mutants are right?” “Yeah, not a ton but enough probably” “Right um, Hank called me yesterday, he’s uh, been comparing me and Scott and Alex’s blood to look at differences in our mutations and such and um, well I am one.” “And that’s what you were so nervous to tell me? That’s not a bad thing pup. It just makes you even more special.” “Well not completely, there’s a second part.” “Okayyy” “So um obviously I have another parent beyond mom or the Colonel, or even William or Diana since they adopted me and um the guys convinced me to have Hank look in the databases for a match to a third parent and um he found them.” “That’s good, right? Or is it some evil terrorist, please don’t tell me it’s sabretooth.” “Uh no, and they’re definitely not evil” “Sooo?” Spencer took a huge breath and let it out before hesitantly whispering “It’s you, Logan.” “It’s me? What? How’s that even? I don’t remember sleeping with you mom, I never met Scott or Alex before I came here to the mansion?” “First can you please tell me if your mad or not, or if you never want to see me again? I just need to know.” Logan immediately scooched over and pulled Spencer into him like he had many times before, though it was a little different this time, a father pulling his son in for comfort now. “Oh my god no, pup, I most definitely am not mad at you, do I maybe wish I had known sooner, sure, but I wasn’t in a great place when you would’ve been born, maybe this was for the best, I don’t know, but I do know we have to play the hand we’re dealt, and I will happily take this one.” Spencer let out a huge sigh of relief before relaxing and allowing Logan’s comforting, steady presence to take over and wrap around him. “As to how, maybe I should drag Scott up here and explain it to you but I won’t do that to him again, apparently um mom and the Colonel had a rather… open, relationship, often bringing people into their bed with them. Uh, Scott actually caught them a few times, that’s how he knows what probably happened…” “Please tell me he didn’t walk in on me and your parents” Spencer blushed heavily before saying “He didn’t say either way though I doubt it, with your senses you likely would’ve noticed another person.” “True, pup, oh well, I’ve always called you pup but now you really are! Anyway, how are you feeling with this, you haven’t had a great experience with father’s before.” “Yeah, that’s true, but I don’t know I feel like you’re different, you’ve always actually cared about me, never run away because of anything I’ve told you, so I mean, I’m not planning on running away if that’s what you're worried about?” “No, not at all, I would love to be your father, I feel like I’ve fulfilled that role already in some ways and I like the honest, comfortable relationship we’ve had and I don’t want that to go away.” Spencer smiled “I’d like that. I’m not sure I can call you dad or anything like that though, plus, that word has never meant a caring or loving person for me, it’s always had a negative association that I don’t want with you.” “That’s completely fine, I would never ask you to do something like that if you don’t want to.” They talked for a little while comfortably wrapped up with each other when Scott poked his head back in “I take it everything went good then?” They both nodded and he smiled “That’s good, I would’ve hated to have to kick my best friend's ass. By the way, dinner’s ready in the kitchen if you two are hungry.” They both snickered at the abrupt change of subject before Spencer snorted out “And the oh-so-normal life in the mansion goes on like some of us didn’t make life-changing discoveries in the last day.” “When is anything ever normal here?” Logan snorted this time “too true, let’s go eat pup, now I got an excuse to be even more protective than before” “Great” Spencer groaned out. 

While relaxing out on the back porch cuddling with Remy, Spencer’s phone rang. “Leave it” Remy whined out. “Sorry, it’s Hotch, I promised him I’d be available if a cased popped off tomorrow.” “Hey Hotch, new case?” “Yeah, sorry to interrupt your time but it seems to be a bad one, a little confusing though, We’ll leave tomorrow morning and meet you at the station okay, I’ll have Garcia send you the station’s address.” “Yeah of course, where are we going?” “That’s the good thing if there is any, it’s in New York so you shouldn’t have to leave too early in the morning to get there, but I’ll talk to you tomorrow unless there’s anything urgent you need from me tonight?” “Nope, all good Hotch, I’ll see you and the team tomorrow. Goodnight.” “Goodnight Reid.” With that, they hung up and Spencer turned to Remy saying “Sorry but I need to get to bed, it’s going to be a long day tomorrow for me, new case popped off, it’s here in New York though, which is convenient, as Hotch pointed out.” Remy nodded and they headed up to his room, saying goodnight to those they passed.

_(A/N: I'm not sure how much I like this chapter but I rewrote it a couple of times and this was the best I could get it so here you go!)_


	8. Chapter 8 - We've Got A Case

The next morning...

Though the team didn’t know exactly where Spencer or the mansion was, Spencer did, and he also knew that due to the fact that the mansion was out of any major town pretty far, to keep suspicions down. He was actually only a pretty short distance away he thought, but he double-checked it on a map to make sure, and he was right. He gave Hotch a call back who answered promptly, “Hotchner” “Hey Hotch, so I was pretty sure but I checked on a map, I’m actually pretty close to the city you guys are going to because it’s kind of a rural area, I’ll probably just get someone here at the mansion to drive me over so what time are you guys going wheels up from DC?” “We just finished the case presentation and something seems weird with it to all of us so we’re packing up right now, should go wheels up in 20 and land in about an hour and a half from right now, then we’re going straight to the station before going to the 2 dump sites.” “Okay, I’m probably going to look over the information here for a half-hour if Garcia can fax me the case file and then I’ll meet you guys at the station when you get here. Sound good?” “Of course Reid, if you give the fax number now I can get it to Gracia before we leave.” “Yeahhhhh just give me 10 seconds to find someone that knows it.” Spencer runs into Scott’s office who was chatting with Jean and asks “what’s the fax number for your machine Scott? I need Garcia to send me something asap.” Scott just paused before looking to his fax machine “umm…” Jean spoke up with a kind smile “It’s 606-899-3020, Spencer” “Thanks Jean” He brought his phone back to his ear “606-899-3020 Hotch” “Okay Reid, I’ll have her get the information to you right away.” “Thanks, Hotch, I’ll be waiting, see you at the station” They hung up and Spencer paced anxiously waiting for the papers. “Case pop off?” Scott asked. “Yeah, bad one it sounds like, they’re already on their way to the plane, it’s actually here in New York out in a rural area about 30 minutes away from here. So they’re all flying up, I’m going to look over the case file for a half hour and then can one of you guys drive me to the station?” “Yeah not a problem, if you need my office while you look everything over you can.” Jean smiled at Spencer before kissing Scott and saying “I’m going to go find Ororo, I’ll see you both later, good luck Spencer,” and then leaving. 

The papers started coming through and Spencer dashed over to grab them and Scott said: “I was just going to work on some paperwork from a mission from a week ago but if you need me to leave I can wait?” “No you’re fine,” Spencer replied as he started spreading out case photos, “I might not suggest looking at these photos though,” They were turning his stomach a little and this was his job. “Hotch said something about this case was setting everyone’s alarms off as suspicious and mine too, but I don’t know why. I think maybe I’ve seen it before or something? Well both victims were mutants but not obviously, that was only found in the coroner's report, so maybe the unsub didn’t know?” Scott looked up with a smile “Are you actually talking to me or yourself?” “What, oh sorry, ask anyone on my team, they can tell you I still talk to myself, a lot, when I work, you can try to help if you see anything but I wasn’t intentionally talking to you.” “Eh, why not, it’s got to be better than paperwork.” He walked over to his desk from where he was sitting on his sofa and looked at a couple of the crime scenes photos before gasping. “Sorry, I know they’re bad, I didn’t mean for you to see them.” “What, oh no, that’s not it, the um case we were telling you we might need your help on, down in DC, this looks like the same crime scenes, and you said the victims are all mutants?” “Yeah there’s only two though, you couldn’t have known about this case yet, and it’s in the wrong location.” “DC wasn’t his first location, we just tracked him there a week ago, he’s been moving across the country we think, He seems to be moving every first week of each new month, and kills 3 people during the second week before hiding out for the last two weeks then moving on. We just haven’t figured out a name yet. If it’s the same person, I don’t know why he would’ve moved from DC to New York so quickly but you should have Ms. Garcia try and find more similar cases nationwide.” “If you’re really sure?” “The cases look almost identical, I have our file for that mission somewhere around here….” “Okayyy, I’m going to video call Garcia from your computer okay? I’ll have her patch us through to the plane, they should be just taking off, I might need you to help explain some things if this ends up matching up.” Reid types on the computer for a minute before sending a request to Garcia’s lair asking for a video conference. On her screen, the message “Video conference requested from an internal, secure server. Accept or Reject?” Appears. She hesitantly clicks accept, ready to hack this person into China if they try to screw with her, to her surprise though, the picture pops up and it’s her boy wonder! “Hey boy wonder, what can I do for you, and also where are you calling me from? And did you get that file I sent?” “Yeah, I did, thanks, Garcia for that, is the team in the air yet?” “Yeah they should be, do you need to talk to them?” “Yeah, can you patch me through to their system in there? And make sure they can still see you to because I’m going to have you check a couple of things out.” “Already, geez boy genius you work fast, and patching you throughhh…. Now”

On the plane, they were all getting ready to start talking about the case file when Derek’s computer beeped with a call from Garcia. He accepted it and the whole team turned to look “Hey mama, you already solved the case for us?” He asked jokingly “Unfortunately, no, hot stuff, though my boy wonder might.” Hotch spoke up “Reid called you?” “Yeah, he video called me and asked me to patch him through to the plane so he should be popping up now.” Reid popped up and Derek said, “Hey pretty boy, what’s up?” “First, who all can hear?” “Uhm, just the team and Garcia, no one’s with us?” “Okay, so I was looking over the file in Scott’s office and he looked at a couple of the pictures and you guys remember the case they all called me about maybe helping on soon. He said these crime scene pictures looked identical. So Garcia, can you try and find any similar cases nationwide.” “Of course my mini crime fighter and…. Oh my god, I just found 15 others in bunches of 3 from 5 different cities across the country. They should be popping up on your tablets now and boy genius you should have the fax now.” Spencer spoke up “That sounds exactly like what Scott was telling me so I’m going to let him fill you in and I’m going to look over these cities really fast okay?” Hotch said “go ahead” so spencer slid out of the frame and Scott appeared “Hey guys, not trying to interfere but I just noticed the similarities. Anyways so the mission we were looking at was a guy who has been hopping all over the country, He moves the first week of the month, kills three people during the 2nd week, lays low for the last two weeks, then moves again. “Oh my God!” Spencer gasped. He reappeared on the screen before saying “Every one of these cities we’ve had the last case of the month in, I think he’s following our team!” the team gasped before looking over the case and Hotch said “I think you’re right Reid, so what does this mean?” Emily offered up, “Maybe they think we’ve wronged them in some way? It might be that we’ve arrested a family member of theirs, or maybe not taken a case they were involved in so they’re trying to get out attention?” Spencer added “All of the victims have been mutants, so I would lean towards Emily’s 2nd idea maybe they or someone they know is a mutant and were victimized in some way and we didn’t take the case that related to it? So they’re trying to make some statement about mutant lives or something? They could also believe they were simply harmed by a mutant and are trying to exact revenge?” Hotch nodded “Any of those are possible options, we’ll start trying to profile here, Reid, we’ll meet you at the station, Garcia, can you try and narrow down a list of people who have purchased plane or train tickets to those cities and look like they might be following us or if there’s evidence of their presence in all of those cities. Garcia nodded and said “I can do that my fine furry crime fighters, Garcia out” Hotch spoke again “Scott, I know I can’t tell you what to do, you’re not my agent, and I’m not going to tell you to not work your uh mission, you may have more ins into the mutant community than we do, but if you find anything that seems key, if you could please pass it along to Reid, we’d be very grateful.” Scott nodded, I’ll see what we can do, we weren’t aware he had moved on from DC yet but we can put some questions out into some underground networks the FBI would never be able to get to.” “Thank you, though that does raise a good question of why he broke from his pattern in DC?” Rossi spoke up, “He could have broken pattern because if he’s been following us trying to get out attention but it wasn’t working, he decided to re-launch out of a location near our home, and move ahead of us to try and get our attention instead, he may have never intended on killing anyone in DC at all.” Scott nodded and said, “I’m going to go tell the professor this mission’s priority is being moved up, Spencer come grab me or Remy or Logan when you’re ready to go.” Spencer nodded and looked to the computer where Derek said, “soo, Scott mentioned Logan, how’d telling him everything go?” Spencer’s smile lit up his face “Really well, he was actually thrilled, he’s called me  _ pup _ for as long as I can remember, it’s kind of a feral thing I guess, but he was really happy, a little confused at first but then really excited and made a crack about me dating one of my father’s best friends because he and Remy have always been really close.” Emily laughed at that and said “I’m glad everything went okay” Reid smiled “Yeah, I’m going to get off Scott’s computer now, I’ll meet you all at the station.” Hotch paused him though “Reid, I’ve got to know though, you seem to hate everything related to technology, how did you get into the FBI’s secure mainframe from the outside?” Spencer snickered before saying, “It was Gideon’s suggestion, in the beginning, to stay away from technology because he thought it might lead to suspiciousness if I just happened to be a dorky genius that was still really good with computers. My main mutation though uses light energy which is also electrical energy, therefore manipulating ELECTRONIC devices is extraordinarily simple.” He finished with a smirk. “Oh, right, see you at the station Reid.”

Reid got to the station first but simply said he was coming from a different part of the country than the rest of the team so he got there first and that the rest of the team would be showing up shortly. He got everything set up in the conference room and started putting everything up on the whiteboards just in time for the team to show up. The team worked the case diligently knowing they were on a short timeline if what Scott had suggested to them was true before Hotch finally herded everyone back to the hotel to crash and wake up bright and early the next morning. 


	9. Chapter 9 - Targeted

It was 7 am when the team was meeting up for breakfast in the hotel, an important 30-minute downtime and catch up time they tried never to skip, knowing once they walked in the station it would be all focused on work. With being away from home so much, away from family and partners, they liked to catch up with anything people might have found noteworthy from calls home the night before, often anecdotes from Hotch or JJ were shared about their kids, knowing the whole team was family and viewed them as an important part, even if they weren’t biologically their aunts or uncles. Spencer included a quick update from Remy, whom the team truly did seem to like, though Spencer privately wondered how anyone could not with hit quick wit and his charm as he liked to call it. This morning Emily added in that the Ambassador had called her since their relationship had turned around to a more familial and loving relationship about a year ago, she called to check up on Emily, and the team, more often, and specifically asking about Spencer, taking on an almost mothering role for him especially, similar to the other mothers who had met the team. Fran Morgan had always adored Spencer and knowing some of his childhood via Derek, was always quick to check up on him, requiring regular phone calls to assure her of his well being, much as she did with Derek’s weekly phone calls, with him even coming to visit occasionally. The one time he had met Rossi’s mother on a visit of hers from Italy, she had been delighted with the young man speaking perfect, of course, Italian, and promptly adopting him in her mind, as he was far too skinny and needed ‘some good Italian cooking to fatten him up’ after which she had hit Dave’s arm with a spoon she had just grabbed to stir a pot, and said ‘are you starving the poor child, he needs to eat more’ which got a mildly exasperated ‘he does eat ‘ma, he just doesn’t gain any weight’ She simply muttered the Italian equivalent of ‘pish posh’ before saying ‘I’ll simply have to take care of that myself which had the whole team stifling snickers. As a true Italian mother, she didn’t reserve the spoon only for her son, but instead, Aaron and Derek both received slaps with the spoon stopping the snickers promptly. 

Spencer smiled at the memory as Emily relayed her mother's inquiries into the team’s wellbeing and her best of luck wishes on the case, bringing his thoughts back to her as she seemed to be yet another adoptive mother of his, after meeting the team a few times with her and Emily’s newfound, close relationship, and also adopting the mindset of the other two that she must regularly keep tabs on him, Fran directly and through Derek, Mama Rossi through Dave and occasionally forcing him to hand his phone over to Spencer so she could hear for herself, and Elizabeth, through Emily no doubt, and whatever connections she had that easily got her whatever information she desired when she wanted it. Even during her stint in an undisclosed location during a set of treaty negotiations, she made sure he got untraceable letters with no return address informing him of her expectations to keep himself healthy and safe. God! That next letter he received after being GRAZED by a bullet one case included 3 pages of her chewing him out, followed by none too happy messages from Fran and Mama Rossi. After a greatly unappreciated comment from him that perhaps they all set up a group chat set so they wouldn’t have to all waste so much time checking in on him as Mama Rossi knew Italian but also enough English to get by, the Ambassador easily fluent in both for obvious reasons, and Fran happened to know Italian too, though she never could get any of her children to learn. He smirked as he remembered some of the conversations they had had that none of her children had been privy to because of that denial growing up. Though they took his idea and made said group chat, they were all over him that it would not be limiting his check-ins with them, this way they could simply share their observations, and that they were not  wasting their time and that he ought to rid himself of that idea at once. He really loved his family in the BAU, and the X-men, and the extended family he had gained with them. 

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a large hand in his face, Derek's “you were really out of it pretty boy, everything good?” “Yeah,” He replied with a gentle smile “I just got pulled into a track of memories that reminded me how lucky and happy I am to have this group of people that I can call family, and all the extended family I gained with it.” the girls ‘awwed’ and Penelope, who often facetimed in for their breakfast catch up sessions said “Of course boy wonder, you’ve always got all of us no matter what” Rossi spoke up, at the same time as Prentiss and Derek “That reminds me…” The whole table burst out laughing and motioned for Rossi to continue first “My mama wants me to tell you that you have exactly one week to call her before she sends Ms. Garcia to collect her information for her.” He finished with a look towards Derek’s phone and Penelope, “apparently they’ve been communicating via the help of Derek and Emily’s mothers and have both jumped aboard the take care of Spencer train.” “Okay” Spencer added with a laugh “I’ll call her after this case.” Derek said, “that’s almost exactly what I was going to say, during my call with her on Sunday she said you are to call her promptly at the conclusion of this case.” Emily added, “Same thing as Mama Rossi for the overprotective Ambassador, sorry Spence” He smiled “Okay, I will call all 3 of them at the conclusion of this case, and Emily, I really don’t mind, I spent so much of my childhood looking after my mother, sometimes it’s nice to have someone step in to remind me of the basic things mothers normally do for their kids, even if they get a bit much sometimes.” A lot of the team got partially sad, halfway smiles on their faces, thinking about Spencer’s childhood. Derek straightened his face out, “As sweet as that moment was, my adoptive little brother, I got your attention because your phone went off, I think it said it was Scott.” He reached for his phone (modern smartphone by the way now that he didn’t have to hide his affinity for electronics) and tapped before his jaw dropped a little and he shook his head before saying “And you guys think I don’t sleep enough, I swear Scott sleeps less than I do.” Before passing his phone to Hotch whose brow crinkled before he took it to read the message that said “Jeremy Davies is our most likely suspect, if it’s him - level 5 mutant, but could you guys look into him and see, with official resources, what you think, we don’t have any clue why, that’s your job Sherlock, but it seems like it might be him.” Hotch passed the phone around and everyone nodded when Hotch spoke up. “Alright, time to head to the station guys, Garcia, we’ll be sending you a name soon, see what you can match up on him to the profile.” “No problem boss man, I’ll have everything waiting, but for now, Tech Queen Out”

The team got to the station and after giving Garcia what she needed, actually had an unusual bit of downtime, the station was small and they were still waiting for the rest of the cops to come in, so they were all tucked away in their conference room, making sure things were lining up. When Spencer slapped his phone to hit the decline button for the 23rd time in 15 minutes Hotch spoke up “If you need to answer you can Reid, we have a couple of minutes.” “No, right now it’s just family, they know I very rarely answer on a case, they can wait, if someone else calls I will but for now I’m assuming it’s personal and can wait.” “If you’re sure” “Yeah, I’m sure it can wait until tonight.”

Reid got up and went to the restroom, leaving his phone on the table where he’d been sitting, needing a break from the calls for a minute. It vibrated, yet again, and Derek looked over, prepared to just let it go, but the name was a new one, it wasn’t Remy, or Alex, or Scott, or even this Logan who was Reid’s dad, it simply said ‘Prof X’ in the Caller ID row. He looked to Hotch before saying “It’s a new caller now, should I answer this one.” “Go ahead, it may be someone from the X-men we don’t know yet about the case, and if not, we can just tell them Reid’s unavailable right now.” Derek nodded and hit answer and speaker before saying “SSA Dr. Spencer Reid’s phone.” A voice none of them knew growled out “I don’t know who you are but if you have taken Spencer or any of his team I swear to god Davies I will turn my team on you and you won’t live to see another sunrise.” Another voice, this sounded like Scott “oh please God professor tell me he answered” “Scott, his phone picked up but it wasn’t him who answered.” There was the sound of a cry from Scott, and Remy? Maybe? Before the phone sounded like it changed hands and a harsh voice growled, “The prof may care about etiquette and not killing but Davies I swear to God if you have my son right now I will kill you in THE most painful way I can think of, and I’ve been held hostage for years, that’s a lot of different ways to torture someone.” The entire team stared at the phone before Hotch almost hesitantly spoke up “Hello, this is Agent Hotchner, Spencer’s boss at the FBI? Who am I speaking too?” The first voice was heard again “Scott. Scott! Scott! Remy! Listen to me! His boss answered the phone, it wasn’t Davies.” The phone was shuffled and then they heard Scott’s familiar voice “Agent Hotchner, please tell me my brother’s okay, he’s been ignoring our calls for almost an hour, at least I honestly hope he was ignoring them in this case.” “Yes Scott, he’s fine, we’re all at the station, he just went to the bathroom. He kept declining calls but said they were all from you or Alex or Remy or a Logan? He seemed annoyed at the abundance of calls and I told him he could answer but he says you know he won’t usually answer while he’s on a case.” “That’s true, but wait, I’ll tell you all when Spencer gets back from the bathroom you said?” “Yes” “Okay, one moment please.” They heard voices still but obviously no longer directed at them but other people in the room with Scott. “That was Spencer’s boss, he’s been declining our calls because he was on a case and thought they were personal calls I believe, he has just gone to the restroom and when he is back with the team I will brief them all, but for now they are all still in the station and safe. Logan, you can chew him out for declining so many calls, but you’re going to need to get in line for that privilege if you’d like to.”

Spencer came back from the bathroom and noticed his phone on speaker but before he could speak Derek said, there was a new caller, it said ‘Prof X’ I don’t know but they just sounded important, there were like 5 of them we could hear, this first caller, Scott, maybe Alex or Remy in the background and some other growly voice.” Spencer briefly snickered at the description before sobering and saying “the ‘growly voice’ was likely Logan, my uh father? Anyway, the first voice would have been Professor X, leader of the X-Men, and if he’s calling it probably is important…” he trailed off before grabbing the phone, but leaving it on speaker said “Professor?” Scott’s voice came instead “Oh thank God Spencer, you’re okay, I know you don’t normally answer calls but almost 30 from 4 of us, you didn’t think it might be important!?!” “Sorry Scott, why’d you all think I was hurt??” “Can the whole team hear and can anyone else?” “Uhm, Yes to the first question and no to the second, we’re in a separate conference room.” “Okay…” His voice cut out as it sounded like it was being shuffled again before Remy’s frantic voice popped on “Spencer,  _ cher _ , ya okay! Remy was so worried, he t’ought ya was gone Penny, ya can’t do dat to dis Cajun again okay?” “Yeah, I’m sorry Rems, what’s wrong though?” “It’s a trap Spencer, this whole thing!  _ Merde _ ! It’s a fu*king trap!” The phone was taken back to the noise of Scott garbling something to Remy that sounded vaguely like him telling him to let him handle it before Scott clearly said “Spencer, and Agent Hotchner, it’s a trap for your whole team. One of Remy’s contacts in the underground got back to him, it’s a trap targeting Spencer, though also your whole team, it’s definitely Davies, we know that now though. Apparently he has a brother who was a mutant who was disowned by the rest of their family, they don’t know who it was though, but this unsub he’s a level 5, that’s too strong for you guys to handle on your own, and you couldn’t have realized that he’s stayed under the radar, the only reason we even know that is because one of our teachers here had a run-in with him at one point in their life, but he’s planning on taking Spencer hostage because Davies has been watching your team and has decided he’s an important part of it, I know you’re all a family but that’s what he’s decided, anyway, he’s going to take Spencer and then utilize Agent Rossi’s expertise at negotiation to get as many cops there as possible before blowing the whole house he’s hiding in. He left a manifesto on an underground site which I have screenshotted the text of and sent to your Ms. Garcia…*rapid typing*... now. It also details where his 3rd and final body is, with pictures, that look really fucking like Spencer, shit. Look, I know you guys are good but if you go to him you’re giving him exactly what he wants. We ARE going in and subduing him before you all get there, he’s too strong of a mutant for even Spencer to take on alone and he’s a level 5 automatically because he’s a tri-mutant. We will be gone by 10:30, I just need you to delay any local police until then.”

Most of the team seemed a little in shock but Hotch spoke up, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do Scott, but I can’t let you bring in a whole team of non-police and risk evidence we’ll need to put him away for good.” “And I understand that too Agent Hotchner, sorry Sherlock, we’ve actually helped on a couple of other cases with lesser mutants and you never realized what happened, I can assure you no one will know we were there other than you all, but I can’t let my brother, or any of you that mean so much to someone in my family, go in and get yourself killed. This has to happen. I’m only bringing you in now because you know us and I trust you, and I feel you, therefore, deserve to know.” “A-alri-ight. I-I will do what I can, I can get you until 10 latest before the locals get suspicious why we aren’t rushing” “We will make that work Agent Hotchner, I appreciate your trust in us.” With that, the phone hung up. At 9:58, right as the team was gearing up to go out, all their phones vibrated with a message from Penelope that said “forwarded from Scott: first bedroom door on left upstairs, bracelet and cuffs, we are all out. do not let the bracelet off him, barely got it on, he’s a little delusional too. Lunch when you’re all done?” Spencer laughed at the last part and put his phone away. They walked out into the main area to meet up with the local police and hotch started explaining the apprehension plan.


	10. Chapter 10 - Reid's Other HOUSE!

The apprehension of their suspect went great, as easy as it could have. Spencer and Derek cleared the bedroom with their unsub, Morgan for plain strength, and Spencer because, in a desperate situation, he would have been necessary for re-subduing Davies if he had gotten out of his cuffs or bracelet before they got there. He hadn’t and they were quick to drag him out of the house in cuffs before throwing him in the back of a police car. He was trying to yell out something about the X-Men but the local cops who heard laughed in his face before saying “As if you’re important enough for the X-men to be worried about. They got far more important things to worry about than your wannabe insignificant little ass.” Interrogation and Booking were completed quickly, with their unsub’s aptitude to brag Dave had to sit with him for only 5 minutes before he started spewing every detail of every body, and where he dumped the last body. The team cleared out of the station and tossed all their gear into the two cars before heading back to the hotel. They would be leaving the next morning so they had the rest of the day to relax. 

About 5 minutes after they all got to their rooms, Spencer texted everyone if they could all come to his room.” In 5 minutes they were all lounging on the two beds and sofa with Derek grumbling about his room being taken over. Spencer spoke up “I know Scott mentioned meeting up for lunch or dinner tonight since we’re staying if our case went well and I can’t take you back to the mansion, but I was thinking maybe we could all meet up with the team that went out before us today, it shouldn’t be that many, I would guess only 5 or 6 of them. I know that despite liking my brothers and Remy a couple of you guys seemed really nervous at the idea of me going on missions with them occasionally, so I thought maybe if you met the team, well the people that I usually work with at least, it might help a little?” Derek nodded “I’d really like that, if for no other reason than they’re a huge part of your life and I want to meet them.” The team seemed totally in favor and when the smile lit Spencer’s face, internally they all knew this was important to him so even if they hadn’t wanted to, they would’ve agreed for their little brother. “Okay, I’m going to call Remy and ask him when he thinks they’ll all be free.” He tapped his phone and put it on speaker so the team could all listen and Remy answered “ _Bonjour_ _cher_ , how’d de case go? All finished?” “You know full well we are Remy Etienne LeBeau. I have no doubt you nor Scooter left until you were sure we weren’t going to screw it all up and get ourselves killed and had the suspect in the police car. Did you?” “Ya got Remy dere. But it was also Wolvie an’ Alex too, really none of us were gonna leave till we was sure ya had ‘im. It took all 6 of us to get him down safely if dere was only 3 o’ 4 of us, it woulda been hard so we just needed ta make sure you and ya team, and according to Scotty de dumb locals too, got out okay.” “Thanks, Rem, anyway, Scott texted us earlier today about meeting up with the 6 that went out today, since I can’t bring them to the Mansion, I was thinking maybe the house and do a BBQ or something, plus it’ll be fun with what’s happening tonight.” “Of course _cher,_ I’ll drag logan there if I haveta, so dinner, everyone come over at like 5 work?” “Sure Remy, we’ll see you then.” He hung up and noticed the curious looks everyone was shooting him before Emily smirked and said: “it seems like phone calls are revealing a lot we don’t know about you, Spencer Reid.” Spencer blushed and cryptically said, “The surprises for tonight haven’t stopped yet.”

Derek asked, “You said we can’t go to the Mansion so where are we meeting them?” “I suppose I'll answer that because otherwise, you’ll bother me all day, we are all meeting up at Remy and my private house. We have it for if I’m coming to visit and don’t want to deal with the mansion or my brothers or now Logan really if I just want time with my boyfriend we’ll go out there. It’s pretty large so we’ll have plenty of room, it’s actually not too far because we wanted to be close enough to the mansion in an emergency, medical or otherwise, but also Remy is a huge city boy so we needed to be close enough to the city he could go easily go and shop too.” “Sounds like he and Garcia would have a field day at the mall.” Spencer smirked “I have no doubt they will go shopping together sometime as soon as Garcia learns that, and we will not want to be around when they get back. I’m just saying.” Hotch said, “okay so we’re going to your house, what should we do before that?” He asked the second part looking at both Reid and Rossi now. “Um whatever you guys want, we just need to leave at 4:30, and bring your go bags and all your stuff with you when we go to my house, you’ll see why later.” “Okay, we can do that” “We’ll all meet in the hotel lobby at 4:30 then, JJ let’s go, we are going shopping in freaking NEW YORK!” Emily said before dragging her out of the room. “ Spencer snickered before laying back on his empty bed and saying “I need sleep, I don’t care what the rest of you do but don’t wake me up before 3:30 if you’re staying in here.” Rossi snorted and said,  “ message received, I’m going back to our room Aaron, I think I’ll work on my newest book edits my editor wants.” Derek flopped onto his bed “Honestly I think a nap sounds like a great idea.” Hotch laughed before heading to the door “You want me to wake you two at 3:30 then?” “Sounds good. Thanks, Hotch” He nodded and shut the door gently behind him.

At 3:30 Reid woke to a pounding on his door, “What.” “Aaron told Derek he’d wake you two sleepy heads up at 3:30 so you could get ready to leave, but he’s in the shower so he asked me to do it,” Rossi replied with a little grin. “Oh, thanks, I’ll go get Morgan up” Rossi nodded and walked away, leaving the door to shut on its own. Reid shook Derek’s shoulder and told him to get up but he only got an “Mmgfh” buried into the pillow. He tried again before walking to the bathroom, making a little light ball and filling it with water before walking back to Derek’s bed and sloshing it next to his ear before saying “If you don’t get up right now Derek Morgan, I will dump this water all over you.” Morgan shot up in bed, “What! Jesus Christ Reid, rude!” He looked at Spencer’s empty hands before saying “and you don’t even have any water.” Before flopping back down. Spencer laughed “No, it would’ve been rude to dump water on you with no warning, and look again.” Derek pulled his eyes open again and this time noticing the ball of water hovering over him “Fuck! Christ Reid, not cool.”

At 4:30 everyone was down in the hotel lobby with their Go Bags, and ready to go but Reid was staring at his phone like he was waiting impatiently for something. Hotch noticed and finally asked, “everything okay Reid?” “No, Garcia still hasn’t texted me, she should’ve landed an hour ago” He replied absently before slapping a hand over his mouth and looking up alarmed. Derek quirked a brow “Why is Penelope coming?” “Because you’ll find out in like an hour but she said she should be in the hotel lobby by 4:15.” “Just call her” Right as Reid was going to do that she came running in with a suitcase and bag, and her laptop case and walked right up to Reid before saying “not that I’m not happy to be in New York, but why was I given 3 hours notice that I had a plane to catch, and not told why I was coming here my delicious vanilla bean?” He started walking to the cars and everyone followed, very confused before Reid said: “sorry Garcia, I needed to give you the least amount of time to tell Derek, did something go wrong though?” “Not really, It took forever to get through security though because I used my FBI credentials as an ID and then they wouldn’t believe me that I didn’t have a gun no matter how many times I said, ‘I’m the technical analyst, I don’t have to carry one!’ so that took forever but no it was okay.” By then everyone was to the two cars so Spencer said “I’ll go with Hotch and direct him, Derek follow us, Garcia go with Derek in case he loses us in traffic I’ll text you the address and you can tell him where to go. Everyone else, choose a car, “ before he hopped into the passenger seat of one of the cars. Everyone exchanged glances before shrugging and doing as told.” 

They drove for a while with everyone getting more and more curious the further they drove before they pulled up to a gate in front of a fancy house, mansion more like, and Hotch stopped at the closed gate before looking to Reid who had unbuckled and was reaching to get out of the car, but Reid paid him no mind, just slid around the front of the car to the panel that was hidden in the brick and typed in a code none of them could see before the gates started opening and he slid back into the car where he said: “Okay when the drive splits into a circle in the front or a path up the side follow the path and stick to the right.” Hotch did and ended up in front of a massive garage that looked big enough for 7 or 8 cars at least. He hopped out and put a code into the garage door for it to go up revealing it was even bigger than it looked and there were already 3 cars next to each other and a motorcycle in the spots furthest from the door into the house. Reid directed Hotch to park in the next one over and Derek followed into the one just to the right. They all got out of the cars and before anyone could speak Derek said “Damn pretty boy are you loaded? If this is what you call a house, I’m not sure how big this ‘Mansion’ must be.” Reid blushed before shrugging and saying “bigger than this, but then a lot of people live there, and spend pretty much their whole time there” They walked into the house and ended up in a mudroom of sorts where Spencer slid his shoes off and turned “normally you don’t need to take shoes off but since we had a case earlier my shoes are still a little muddy if yours aren’t you can just leave them on.” They all slide their shoes off just in case, and they didn’t want to mess up such a gleaming house. He led them into a surprisingly cozy living room after dropping his bag on the stairs between the two rooms and instructing the others to do the same. 

“I’m sure Remy and the X-men will be a little late because Remy can’t get anywhere on time ever, so I can give you guys a tour now if you’d like and answer your questions, or we can relax until they get here.” Hotch spoke up “I think questions, tour, then relax until they get here if that’s okay Reid?” “Yeah of course, so ask your questions” “You own this house?” “Yes, Remy and I both do, but yes.” “Where the hell did you get the kind of money to buy a place like this?” “I didn’t buy it, we built it custom, and it’s well known I can make a lot of money gambling, Remy and I decided if we were going to build a place to make it as close as perfect as we could get so after about a week in a few different Casinos we had enough money to do this and not have to take anything out of savings or get a loan.” “Damn pretty boy, you want to buy me a place like this?” “Well not really, but this might be pretty close”, he walked into the kitchen and opened a drawer before taking out a bag and sitting back down on the sofa when Hotch’s phone rang. He said “and that’s what I’ve been waiting on” before motioning for Hotch to answer. He did and hung up only a minute later with a shocked look on his face “We all have the rest of this week off and 2 more weeks after that… Strauss said that our AD had noticed our ‘high caseload lately’ and wanted to give us a break for a little while. The plane will be back after our break to take us all home.” Spencer jumped in “which is the perfect segway to my complete explanation, we’re all getting tired, and that’s not good, I think I’ve actually slept in my own bed like 8 times in the past 4 months, we need a break and I asked John to give it to us, so this happened, that’s why I had you all bring your go bags. JJ, Hotch, Will is coming tomorrow morning with Jack and Henry, they will be joining us as well, I planned part of this with Will’s help, please don’t get mad at him for not telling you JJ, a few of us were working really hard to make this a good surprise.” Everyone just blinked for a minute before Garcia spoke up “That’s why I had to come to?” “Of course, you’re just as much a part of our family as any profiler, you needed a vacation too.” “Oh you, my perfect boy wonder, are a God.” Hotch actually smiled and said, “Thank you Reid, but how did you do this?” “John hears all about our obscenely busy lives from me and actually suggested maybe I needed a break but I said it wouldn’t be a vacation without my family so we worked together and got all of us a long vacation. He talked to Will’s chief and told him he was needed on official FBI business, and who’s going to argue with an Assistant FBI Director. The kids are only going to miss 2 days of school before they’re on break so this seemed like a perfect time.” “Wait, you’re on a first-name basis with the AD?” “Uh, yeah, John’s a very good friend of mine as well as my sponsor.” “Ohhh.” 

“Anyway, I’ll finish explaining now, so yes, those 3 should be here tomorrow morning for the rest of the vacation, and I’ve coordinated with their teachers to get them their work for the last 2 days of school before the break that they’re missing. Derek, I’d rather not buy each of you a house of this scale, they would never get used in our busy lives, however,” He pulled a large set of keys out of the bag “these are all yours for the rest of this trip and on.” “Reid, what, we can’t take those.” “You can and you are,” he said pressing the first key into Derek’s hand before sorting out the rest and handing them to their appropriate owners. “These are now yours, the sheet of paper in the center of the table is the front gate code, the garage code, and security system code respectively, JJ can you please share those with Will when he gets here?” She nodded and he continued “You can now all access this house at any point in time you’d like, I do not have to be here. You all have suite type areas on a higher floor, I’ll show you those on the tour, Remy and I obviously have the “master” bedroom area but it’s quite similar to all of yours. Since this house was custom built you each had your suite customized to what I guessed you would like, JJ and Hotch’s both have two bedrooms so Henry and Jack can have special spaces too. Those I had more trouble decorating so when they get here if they want to change anything they are more than welcome to, these rooms are now yours, no one else will go in there. Alex and Scott both have their own suite areas, just like yours, as well as one for Logan since I’ve always been very close to him. He sometimes uses this house to get away from the chaos in the mansion for a while because his advanced senses need a break from the noise and brightness, but even if anyone is here, you are more than welcome to come whenever you want, you can actually never run into anyone if there are only a few people here because there are so many spaces. The level beneath us is the basement, though not entirely underground. It has the pool and all the fitness/recreation areas. This floor is mainly gathering spaces, the kitchen, dining room, etc. The floor above this has my office as well as the study/library area, and my bedroom plus all of the suites. The 3rd floor has an art studio, mostly Remy uses that, but feel free to as well, and the guest bedrooms where the X-men can stay if they come over, but those are regular guest rooms since they have the mansion pretty close they don’t usually spend the night if they come. There is an elevator if we need it, and if the Professor ever comes, but usually the stairs are just easier. I think that we can probably go on the tour now though?” Everyone nodded pretty excitedly. 

Spencer led them downstairs. He showed them the pool, a basketball and volleyball combined court, an enclosed area with mats covering the ground (“Where Remy practices his acrobatic who knows what, and sometimes kicks my butt with his Bö”) before showing them a door, “This is an um, a mini-Danger room essentially where we can train our powers, helpful for when Remy or I have power to blow or something. This is one room that I’d prefer you stay out of unless you’re with me or Remy, or any X-Man really, it’s not that you can’t go in, that’s just a little close to X-Men territory, and if someone forgot to lock the door during a session you could get really hurt. There’s a latch up here that can be done from both the inside and out, as well as an inside only one. The outside latch is actually because I always planned on bringing you guys here eventually and Jack or Henry might forget because they’re curious kids, so this way they can’t get in by themselves by accident.” The team all nodded and Hotch said “this is your house Reid, anywhere you don’t want us to go we won’t” to which Spencer nodded thankfully. He took them back up to the main floor and showed them around the sitting room, game room, living room they were in earlier, as well as a formal dining room, before ending at the base of the stairs by the kitchen and having everyone grab their bags. He showed them his Library and office first before saying, “okay Derek’s right here” they went in and it was a beautiful bedroom sectioned off by a wall made of shelves with a sitting area off to the side, then he pointed to two doors, labeling one as a personal bathroom and the second, which was near the bedroom area, was the closet. Derek dropped his bag on the bed and they left the room going to Garcia’s room which was right next door, she had a similar layout with different colors and decorations. JJ was next and this time Spencer said “okay a little different in this one, the bedrooms are both actually walled off with this little sitting area in front. JJ, you and Will have the one on the left, with the one on the right being Henry’s and if you notice the small door on the wall of his room, I will show you what that connects to in a moment.” They went into Hotch’s room which was right next door and said, “Nearly identical layout to JJ’s Hotch, but here the larger bedroom is the one on the right, that one’s yours and this one on the left is Jack’s. He has a door in his wall too, they connect the two kids’ rooms so if they want to go into the other’s room and have a little sleepover they can, but they can also both lock the door from their sides if they want to keep the door shut.” “Aww that’s so cute Reid” Garcia gushed. Spencer blushed and led them back out to Rossi’s room, which was very similar to Garcia and Morgan’s, as was Emily’s after that to which he said to her, Derek, Rossi, and Garcia “If any of you want yours re-worked after this vacation so they have a second bedroom more like JJ or Hotch’s, without the kid door obviously, let me know.” From there they went on to Scott, Alex, and Logan’s suites where he just opened the door so they could peek in, but were clearly lived in at some point, and he pointed out the one unassigned suite on the floor. Lastly, they went to the master room which was gorgeous, also clearly lived in, with personal photos and such. They went up to the third floor which Reid just tapped on most of the doors saying “Guestroom, guestroom, guestroom….” Until they reached a door and he opened it before saying “The only interesting room on this floor, the art studio, as you can tell Remy has a couple works in progress, don’t touch them, Remy will not be happy, otherwise use whatever you would like." 


	11. Chapter 11 - A Fun Night & A Rough Morning

They went back down to the living room and settled in just in time to hear the garage door open up. Spencer looked at the clock before saying “5:20 not too bad, though they must not have let Logan or Remy drive or they would’ve been here sooner.” They heard the door open and voices, some of which they could identify and assumed the unknown male voice was Logan but were completely stumped by the two female voices. They heard Scott say “Remy, I swear do you not know how to be on time anywhere? We’re 20 minutes late.” “It’s fine Scotty, Penny knows dat Remy is always late, ‘sides, if you’da let him drive we woulda been here faster.” Then Alex’s voice, “Uh, no thanks, I think most of us would prefer to get where we’re going in one piece, I know that’s not a problem for you Logan, you drive the same fuckin’ way but for the rest of us that don’t regenerate from a drop of blood, both of your driving is terrifying, hey wait your boyfriend, and son, is a fed, maybe we can get him to take away both of your licenses.” At that, everyone in the living room cracked up and even Hotch and Rossi snickered, which is right when Remy walked in being the first in the group. “Hey, Penny what’re you laughin’ at?” “Alex, you, Logan” Spencer gasped out between laughs. “Moi? What’d Remy do.” “Nothing, just your argument about driving” He composed himself before saying “Alex, though I might agree with that assessment, that is not my power, that’s all the DMV’s judgment, flawed though it may be.” “Hey, Remy’s feelin’ attacked  _ cher _ , ya supposed to be on his side.” “And I am, on most things, your driving, however, is like a Turkish cab driver in New York City.” “Oh hush you” Spencer snorted before pulling Remy down to him and giving him a passionate kiss causing the stocky man, Logan? to clear his throat. Remy looked up to glare before giving Spencer another quick kiss and settling next to Reid allowing him to curl into his side as Remy ran a hand down his back. Remy looked at the man and said: “Just ‘cause ya Penny’s  _ pere _ now don’t mean ya get to act all overprotective and be clearin’ ya throat over dere all de time.” So definitely Logan then, crossed menacing arms over his chest and gave Remy a look before Scott was the one to speak up and say “I hate to break it to you Remy, but that’s something Logan would have done anyway, he’s always been protective over Spence.” Remy rolled his eyes before Spencer sat up and said “Okay, I’m guessing you’ve all started guessing who’s who but that’s Logan, my uh father, the woman standing, well sitting now, next to Scott with bright red hair is Jean, Scott’s wife, and my sister-in-law, and finally Ororo, is the one with white hair and is basically Remy’s sister, though not biologically. Guys, well Logan and girls, this is my boss, Aaron Hotchner, as well as father to Jack, David Rossi, Emily Prentiss, JJ - Henry’s mother and wife of Will LaMontagne, son of the one cop in New Orleans Remy talks about, Penelope Garcia, and Derek Morgan.” After the introductions, they all chatted a while, catching up and talking about what had happened since some of them last saw each other, though that was only a few days ago. They had a nice time out in the backyard and on the patio until about midnight when they all decided to go to bed. All the X-men decided to stay as well since they mostly had their own rooms and Storm took the guest suite. 

Before going upstairs for the night, Spencer asked if they could do some kind training session the next morning before most of them went back to the mansion because he had a lot of stress and emotions to burn through from the last couple of days. Scott nodded and said breakfast is at 9, we’ll meet in the training room at 7. Alex and Remy groaned before saying “Seriously, can’t we have a day off, we’re not even at the mansion right now!” Scott shook his head before narrowing his eyes and saying “Or you could have to attend the group session at the mansion as well when we get back if you want to keep complaining.” They both shook their heads but said “no.” Scott looked to Ororo, “Ro do you know where it is?” She shook her head and Jean sent her a mental map of the house with a path highlighted from her room down to the training room. She nodded and said “Okay, I’m good, thank you, Jean. I’ll see you all at 7.” Before tilting her head to look at her new mental map and heading up the stairs to her room. The rest of the other guys followed suit. They got to Remy and Spencer’s bedroom first and Logan looked at Spencer and Remy before saying “I really don’t want to hear anything tonight, please.” Remy grinned devilishly, “Ya not going to hear anything  _ mec _ , ya at de other end of de floor fo a reason Wolvie.” Logan slapped the back of Remy’s head before rolling his eyes and heading down towards his room, Scott shook his head and did the same and Jean followed him. 

As soon as the bedroom door shut behind Spencer and Remy, Spencer was pinned against the wall with Remy’s mouth devouring his. Spencer gently pushed him off and went to the bed before saying “Remy, my whole’s teams here.” “Remy can be quiet” “No you can’t” “But Remy missed you, so maybe you’ll just have to give dis Cajun mouth sometin’ else to do hm?” Spencer gasped as Remy ground down on him so he pushed two fingers into Spencer's mouth telling him to suck as he slowly pushed Spencer's pants off and quickly pushed his shirt to the side, before doing the same to himself, then reaching between them to grab Spencer’s aching member. “Ahh fuck Remy, Please” “And Remy’s the one that can’t stay quiet  _ cher _ ” “Ah fuck, you’re just too good at this.” Remy slid down pulling his fingers out of Spencer’s mouth and kissing Spencer’s tip before slowly taking the whole thing in his mouth. “Oh fuck yes Remy” Remy bobbed his head a couple of times before swallowing Reid and pushing one finger past Spencer’s tight ring of muscles. A couple of minutes later and he got a second on in, slowly pushing them and scissoring them apart, before doing the same with a third. After a couple of minutes Remy asked “You ready  _ cher _ ?” Spencer nodded and Remy covered his mouth in a kiss before thrusting in, swallowing Spencer’s scream into his mouth. Remy pounded into Spencer whispering hot words into Spencer’s ear before hooking Spencer’s legs onto his shoulder and thrusting in deeper, now striking his prostate with every hit. Spencer pulled a pillow over his face before crying out and releasing all over his stomach with the help of a couple pulls from Remy’s hand. His orgasm hit Remy with waves of pleasure who tried to put an empathetic shield around them so they didn’t wake anyone else up, but Spencer clamped down on him tight bringing him over the edge quickly. They collapsed onto the bed next to each other, quickly falling into a deep sleep. 

At 6:30 when their alarm went off, neither was pleased that they felt like they had just gotten to sleep, though, Spencer thought in hindsight, they had only gotten about 5.5 hours of sleep, which after how little he slept on the case and the days before that with Remy, it wasn’t too surprising his body was starting to reject the short amount of sleep. Spencer stumbled to the coffee maker he had in the sitting area of his room that he set last night to have coffee ready at 6:30 this morning. He made two cups the way he and Remy each like them before bringing them back to bed where his Cajun was sleepily trying to open his eyes, and failing spectacularly. Remy was NOT a morning person, he was much more of a stay up until 3 and sleep until noon kind of person. They just barely drug themselves down to the training room, unknowingly and accidentally crashing into Morgan’s bedroom door waking him up. They, along with Logan who had followed the down the hall, were the last ones so as soon as they were in Scott locked the door and started setting the controls after describing the drills they were going to do. Morgan, slightly unsure of what had woken him, but now awake after years of unfortunately timed calls for cases, decided to head down to the gym… As soon as he could remember how to get there and which stairwell led where. After wandering around for about 15 minutes he managed to get to the right floor, and after 5 more minutes of lost wandering, he found the traditional weight room with a couple treadmills and such, as well as free weights at about 7:30. He planned to work out for about an hour before showering and getting to breakfast by 9. After a good workout for Morgan and a rough training session for the X-Men, they were all separately packing up to go back upstairs at 8:30. Scott had put them through the wringer this morning, himself included though so they couldn’t complain as much, and they had all been reminded there is no family or lovers in X-Men training. The teams were Storm, Wolverine, and Bolt facing Phoenix, Cyclops, Gambit, and Havok. The game was an edition of capture the flag, where you were also working to take out all the members of the opposing team. Whicher team accomplished either first won. It was a tight race with Gambit blasting Bolt singeing his shirt, but ended up in Spencer forcing him back against a tree in their jungle setting, where Wolverine pinned him until he surrendered out of the game first. Havok was the next to go after Storm had pinned him in a lightning strike while Bolt wrapped a protective electric shield around Wolverine allowing him to once again, tackle and pin someone underneath his claws until Alex too, clapped out of the match. Phoenix managed to whip a fallen chunk of a tree at Bolt with her telekinesis who grunted and collapsed briefly, though in the back of his mind he was pretty sure he felt a rib crack before charging a tree branch with his electricity and blasting it into her knocking her to the ground with a scratch on her forehead and cut on her arm. Storm distracted Cyclops in a storm of lightning while Bolt sent charged objects into the mix for a brief minute while Wolverine’s stealth and speed, along with smell followed the tracks back to their flag where he grabbed it and the simulation ended. 

Scott looked up before groaning, “Seriously, Fuck Logan, I didn’t even see you while trying to dodge the queen’s lightning storm here.” Ororo giggled a little before Remy piped up saying “Remy’s pretty sure that was kind of the point Cyke” “Oh hush you, mister I let my boyfriend pin me against a tree, like 5 minutes in.” Remy crossed his arms and sulked. Meanwhile, Spencer had rushed over, well attempted to rush over, to where Jean was still on the ground holding her head and arm, he tried to move too fast and his rib protested, sending him straight back to the ground cradling his stomach next to her. Logan looked up at the thud and smell of blood in the air and after checking over his pup and not thinking there was anything wrong, moved to Jean’s side pushing her hand and hair out of the way to check the cut on her head. Scott and everyone else came over too and after realizing she would just have a headache for a couple of hours but did need to bandage her arm, Scott sent Remy to grab a couple of towels. Deciding Jean was going to be fine Spencer flopped flat on the ground from his sitting up position, letting out a whimper of pain at the rough impact on the floor. That grabbed Alex and Remy’s attention so while Logan and Scott stayed wrapping a towel around her arm and wiping off her forehead so they could move to go bandage it, they were both leaning over Spencer trying to figure out what was wrong with him. Ororo meanwhile was disengaging the program and the door so they could all head up an shower before breakfast as soon as injuries were taken care of. Spencer groaned out after a second of laying there “Scott you need to make a program where when the simulation ends, all the injuries you got during it go away too.” Logan snorted “Wouldn’t that be something pup?” Remy grabbed Spencer’s attention saying, “Yeah, you and Blue (Hank) can work on that after you tell us what’s wrong with you or we can take you to Hank and let him figure it out.” “No it’s fine, it’s just my ribs, they’ll be good by tomorrow or the day after, but I gotta say, Logan?” he looked over and raised an eyebrow. “I would’ve appreciated getting your whole healing power not this 2nd generation version with how often I manage to hurt myself.” Logan smirked before saying “Sorry pup, don’t think I really had any control over that.” Scott cringed and said, “can you two not, I’m having way to much trouble not picturing Logan and our parents Sherlock.” Spencer blushed a Logan froze, “you saw us?” Scott turned the color of a fire truck this time before replying “I don’t think any of the times I walked in on was you, but I still saw it like 6 or 7 times and I would rather not think about my best friend that way thank you very much.” Logan nodded but actually had a hint of a blush on his cheeks before looking to Remy and asking “What’s wrong with the pup?” Remy shrugged “All he said was something about his ribs.” 

Scott looked up at his brother from where he had just finished wrapping a towel around his wife’s upper arm before inquiring “What happened to your ribs Sherlock.” “I think I heard one crack…” “What!” Remy exploded while Logan, Alex, and Scott all burst out various versions of “And you didn’t stop the simulation! What the hell Spencer!” Spencer just blushed and looked away before saying, “It’s not that bad, it’ll be healed in a day or two” Scott leveled a look at his brother but before he could say anything Logan snapped “and if it had broken and punctured a lung what would you have done then pup? You just said it yourself, your healing isn’t as strong as mine, you can’t come back from a drop of blood!” Spencer just mumbled out a sorry and Alex sighed, “how’d it happen?” Spencer looked to Jean and she sent him a message that said: “I’m sorry, you can implicate me here.” Spencer looked up before saying “Jean flung part of a fallen tree trunk at me and it hit my side as I charged a branch and blasted it back at her. We both hurt each other. Sorry Jean, by the way, I didn’t realize it was sharp enough to cut you.” She smiled gently “You’re fine Spencer, I think you took the worst injuries here, besides you have to answer to your whole team, the only people that will know I got hurt are down here.” Spencer tilted his head at her before saying, “I know you might not all trust them totally yet, but as soon as Garcia or JJ find out you got hurt too, they're going to be all over you as well. JJ’s a mom and it’s just what she does and Garcia’s just that way naturally. Besides, you’re my family and on our team, that means you're their family too. Three of my team's mothers call or text me alone at least weekly since Diana can’t. We always tell each other that we’re a family, you’re part of that family too now.” Jean blushed before saying “It might be nice to have some other women to help guilt trip my helpful man here” with a little smirk. Scott just shook his head and said, “You know I’d help you anyways, you don’t have to slice your arm open for that.” She laughed before jokingly replying “It’s more dramatic this way.” Spencer started to push himself off the ground but was stopped but a bunch of different hands on his shoulder. “What?” “You just said you have a cracked rib” “And I need to go upstairs to tape up my ribs, there’s not much else you can do other than ice and Advil.” They all looked at Jean for a more medical perspective, “he’s right unfortunately, they’re just a kind of painful injury that you have to just let heal as long as it’s not fully broken, and…” she focused for a minute “I agree with him, I don’t think it’s totally broken, it’s just going to be a painful crack for a day or two until his healing can get everything sealed back together. At least it’s not a couple of weeks though.” Spencer nodded and said, “So can we go upstairs now.” They nodded and gently helped him up where Remy braced the injured side to take some of Spencer’s weight off his rib earning him an appreciative smile. Ororo unlatched the door and swung it open and they all headed into the hallway towards the elevator, Spencer deciding he didn’t feel like walking stairs right now, only Derek was exiting the fitness room at that moment.

Derek turned to head to the stairs to go back up but stopped short when he came face to face with all the X-Men and noticed at least Spencer and Jean were hurt, but couldn’t tell who else. “Holy shit, Spencer, Jean are you two okay, what the hell happened.” Spencer paused to send a look a Jean and said: “Told you they’d be worried about you too.” She just blushed, but Morgan overheard and said: “Yeah, of course, everyone will be, you’re Pretty Boy’s family, that makes you our family too.” A couple of them snickered hearing Spencer say almost those exact words earlier, and at how well Spencer knew his team, but also thrilled with how well Morgan, and the whole team, had embraced them, curious of course, but never judging them for being mutants or supposed terrorists. Derek spoke again “But what happened to you.” Remy spoke up, we were doing a training session and Jean flung a fallen tree trunk into Spencer’s side and Spencer blasted Jean with a charged branch that had some spikes on it he didn’t see, cutting her arm and forehead. We think Spencer cracked a rib so we’re going upstairs to all shower and everything, then we’ll bandage up Jeannie and once she’s good, she’ll check and make sure Spencer’s rib is okay before we tape it up.” “Okayyy. Can I help you guys?” “Not really, we’re gonna take the elevator so he doesn’t have to walk stairs.” “Okay, I’m going to go to the kitchen, maybe start pulling stuff out for breakfast when everyone’s down. Something like a thud or something woke me up and I couldn’t go back to sleep so I figured I’d get a workout in.” Spencer blushed and said, “The thud was me and Remy crashing into your door on our way down here, sorry, I didn’t think you’d woken up, my brain wasn’t quite functional yet that early.” “It’s fine, you have a nice rec space and training area down here.” “Thanks”

They went upstairs and managed to all get showered and clean before reconvening in Spencer and Remy’s room. They grabbed a first aid kit and Spencer put a couple of butterfly bandages on her head prompting Logan to snort, “Why do the two people who actually know how to help, medically at least, have to be the only two that got hurt, you two are ridiculous.” They all laughed before Remy said “Alex, Ro, and Wolvie, you all can probably go down and start on some food. Scooter and I got the dynamic duo up here.” They nodded and headed out before Spencer unwrapped the new towel that had been wrapped around Jean’s arm after she showered and said, “I’ve been thinking and talking to Hank, we were thinking that maybe since when I get really hurt, in addition to my healing factor I can target energy to the hurt skin to speed up some of the healing, even more, I might be able to do that for other people. So, could I maybe try on your arm? If it hurts or anything I’ll stop of course, but we thought it might be a new application of my energy.” Jean looked to Scott who shrugged and she said, “Sure, even if it scars or something any shirt sleeve will cover it.” Spencer nodded and gently reached forward touching the edge of her cut before channeling the slightest wave of energy and feeding it through his finger “Oh my god” He jumped back “Did that hurt?” “No sorry, it’s weird, it’s kind of warm and tingly though.” He nodded and Scott looked down before pointing and saying, “It might be working though, the cut’s a little shorter and there’s no more of a scar than what would have occurred naturally.” Jean looked down and nodded “You want to try again” He nodded but paused and said, “Until I talk to Hank, I don’t think I should completely seal it over because I don’t know if I’m just healing the skin or blood vessels and everything underneath too, and if it’s just the skin you could end up with a pocket of blood trapped under your skin or some kind of infection that can’t get out which I don’t think would be good, what do you think, you have more medical training than I do?” “I would agree, though this could be really useful, we should talk to Hank, just seal it all except like the bottom inch where the cut started and then I’ll look at you.” He nodded and gently placed his finger on the edge again, channeling a tiny amount of energy before slowly moving down until only about an inch of the cut was open and pulling his hand back. “You okay?” “Yeah, it’s kind of weird, it’s almost like I can feel my arm trying to heal now.” Spencer nodded “I basically just gave them extra energy to kick start the healing process like I can do for myself by channeling a little extra energy into the cells.” He gently bandaged her arm, covering up the ex

Jean shifted and Remy gently pushed his shoulder down, “Okay your turn to be the patient now. Just pull your shirt up and let me feel your ribs okay?” He nodded and Remy pushed his shirt up and Jean gently ran her hands down both of his sides. “I think it’s just a crack but can I ya know check?” “Yeah of course.” She closed her eyes and focused resting her hand above the rib. After a minute she leaned back and let out a sigh before saying, “I think you’re okay, it’s not out of place or anything so I’m just going to wrap up your ribs and then we should be good okay?” Spencer nodded and Remy handed him an ibuprofen, which he quickly swallowed.

Jean and Spencer got up from the bed and Remy wrapped an under his shoulders again, before guiding him up and out of the room. The four made their way downstairs and into the kitchen where the bau was seated around the island and table, while Rossi was cooking up a storm at the stove making pancakes and sausage. Remy sat down on a chair before pulling Spencer onto the chair next to him and leaning him back into his chest. Garcia came rushing over “Oh my boy genius are you okay and my red-haired beauty! What happened to your arm?! Derek said you were hurt” “I’m okay Ms. Garcia, Spencer took the worst of the injuries” She added with a little smirk towards Spencer. “Oh psh, none of that, Garcia or Penelope, none of that formal stuff, and if my hot stuff tries to tell you otherwise I’ll crash his online life.” Jean laughed “Hot stuff?” Spencer spoke up, “Derek, they have… interesting nicknames for each other.” “Oh” “My vanilla bean what happened?” Spencer looked up “All the overprotective people listening because I’m explaining this once and that’s it… I needed to blow some energy because of the stress from the last few days so I had Scott set up a training session downstairs this morning. Jena and I were on opposite teams and using her telekinesis threw part of a fallen tree trunk at her, it hit my ribs and cracked one of them?” He looked to Jean and she nodded so he continued “At the same time I charged a tree branch that I hadn’t realized had spikes on it and blasted it at her, it cut her arm and face. Neither one of us is that bad, I’ll be fine in a day or two and her cuts should be too. Now that we’ve covered what we did this morning, how has the rest of your mornings been?” Derek groaned, “It took me 30 minutes to find the gym, and after running into you guys downstairs, another 15 to get back to my room.” Garcia whined, “I had the same issue, well just down to the kitchen but still, I’m not an agent like you guys, I don’t pay attention to where I am as much and I couldn’t figure out what stairwell went where.” Aaron looked down before saying “I’ll admit I had the same exact problem, you have an amazing house Reid, but it’s going to take me a couple of days to figure out my way around.” JJ nodded her agreement saying “It wasn’t too bad, I followed the doors, and I was one of the last ones to come down, I had to do some work up in my room this morning, so I just followed voices.” Spencer snickered as did Remy and a couple of the X-Men getting them all curious looks until Spencer explained “You sounded just like something we make fun of Logan for, but in reverse, we all make fun of him for sniffing out or listening for people in the mansion and then running in the opposite direction, but you listened to people to follow the noise” Logan growled and poked a claw at Spencer making Garcia jump away from him. Logan pulled the claw back in before apologizing, “I’m sorry Ms. Garcia, I didn’t mean to scare you, the pup knows I would never hurt him, it’s kind of just my way of expressing my *extraordinary* annoyance at him” he finished with a look at Reid. “Garcia, it’s fine, and even if he accidentally cut me, I’d just heal back, it’s okay.” She nodded hesitantly “It’s okay, and seriously people drop the ‘Ms.’ got it? I don’t like it, need it, or want it.” They smiled and nodded and she relaxed. 


	12. Chapter 12 - Introduction to Telepathy

Jean tapped Reid’s shoulder before her eyes blanked a moment as did Spencer’s before the cleared and he replied out loud, “Just ask them yourself.” She blushed and Derek spoke up “What’s up?” She hesitantly looked up before leaning back into her husband that was behind her and saying “um, you were all saying you were getting kind of lost this morning?” They nodded but Garcia snarked “Except Prentiss because she’s spent way to much time in mansions growing up.” “Hey, It’s not my fault eventually you realize they’re all laid out pretty standardly, though this does have more variations than normal since it was custom, continue Jean.” “Um, if you’d like, I can uhm” She got really shy so Spencer continued for her “She can give you all an interactive mental map that I designed when Remy and I first built the house. You can interact with it and look at it just like any other memory but it should help you get around until you figure out where things are.” Jean spoke again “I would never do anything you didn’t want me to do though I would just send you the map and leave. Spencer gave it to me when I first came here because I have to be the sort of middle person to pass it on, but if you’d like me to I can give it to you.” 

They all looked hesitant before Garcia said: “Boy wonder trusts you and that’s good enough for me, I’m tired of running around this place like a crazy person.” Jean smiled before her eyes clouded and then cleared. “You should be able to pull it up just like a memory now Penelope. Just think as if you’ve seen a physical map of the house and try to picture it as if you’re visualizing something that happened say last week.” “Oh wait, woah” “Then just look around as if you’re moving a physical paper in front of you, try to find your room. Then you can sort of trace a path from the kitchen to there so you know where to go and which stairwell to use.” “Oh my gosh!” She wrapped her arms around Jean “Thank you! This is amazing!” Jean smiled gently, having been warned seconds ahead of time by Spencer that she was probably going to get hugged-well crushed.” Derek looked thoughtful before saying “How does that work, none of us are mutants or telepaths?” “That’s why I have to work as a go-between, between Spencer who originally made the map, though now I have it directly, and since I am a telepath, I can open a channel of communication between myself and someone else or multiple other people, so it doesn’t matter that you can’t.” Garcia spoke up “Why is it so much more interactive than my other memories?” “It’s not, it seems that way because you didn’t make the memory yourself, it’s like reading a sheet of paper someone else wrote, you don’t know the process that happened to make the paper, only the end result, but your memories you made, it doesn't seem odd to look around at what happened or picture different parts of the memory happening since you were there when the event happened, so it feels like a natural action to manipulate the memory, while this one seems to stand out to you because it wasn’t originally yours. It will eventually settle until it feels like just another memory in your many memories.” “Oh that actually makes a lot of sense, like how you can read a book and remember the characters, but at the start of the book they seem abstract in your brain, because they were the author’s idea originally, but by the end, you’ve pictured them in your own way, with a certain hair and eye color and stuff?” “Exactly. One other thing, I don’t have a perfect memory, and I’m assuming you don’t either, but the memory was originally neither mine nor yours, it was Spencer’s, he made that mental map, so since he does, it doesn’t matter how much time passes, you’ll always be able to pull up any section of the map with perfect clarity.” “So I get my own mini-moment of genius-ness like Boy Wonder?” “I suppose you could describe it like that.” “Thank you, this is so cool!” Jean smiled, “I’m glad.”

JJ somewhat nervously spoke up, “I have to know what has Garcia freaking out because it’s so cool, and having exact locations of things would be helpful, but um you won’t like, look at anything like the memories I already have or anything right?” “Absolutely not, I technically could, I’ll be honest, but I never would without your express permission, as I did for Penelope, I will simply send the map into your memories by opening up a link, and then closing that link after you get the map. I won’t look at anything in there.” “Okay.” “Okay, you want me to give you the map?” “Yeah, I do” Jean’s eyes took on that far away look the team was realizing meant she was communicating telepathically, before quickly clearing. “So try and picture a map of the house, as if you’ve always had it, you’ll be able to pull if from your memories.” “Wow, that’s cool, it’s like a whole blueprint.” “Now try and picture highlighting a path from where you are now to your room.” “Oh my God, that’s cool! Thank you, Jean.” “Of course.” 

Emily and Derek both spoke up, “Can you send it to me too please?” and “I think I want to see it please, I spent way too long running around lost this morning.” Jean smiled and focused she sent it to Derek first. She looked at him and said “You should be able to access it now. Do the same things I told JJ and Penelope.” He focused before saying “Damn, that’s cool.” Jean grinned at his honest emotion before saying “the next time you try to call it up, you won’t have to focus so hard, it’s slowly embedding into a memory created by you every time you access it.” She looked at Emily and said, “You as well?” She nodded and Jean focused for a second, before closing her eyes, then she physically jolted backward like she had been shoved, and opened her eyes gasping while Emily rubbed her forehead. Jean looked at Emily questioningly before saying “Are you a path of some sort?” The team looked confused, as did Emily who shook her head before saying “I’m not a mutant at all,” and adding in a slightly joking tone “at least as far as I know. Why are you trying to tell me I am?” Completely serious Jean replied “Maybe.” “Wait I was joking” “I’m aware, and I’m not, I’ve never met someone who’s not a path, and a strong one at that, with mental shields of your strength.” Hotch spoke up, “I was going to ask when you were done with Emily, but what if you try with me and then go back to her.” Rossi added, “Or me, I was going to ask the same thing, I want to see this map.” Jean took a breath and said, “Yes, I will give it to both of you first and then try again on Emily.” Her eyes went distant and she cleared them before saying to Hotch, “try and access it in your memories as I described to your team earlier. Dave, you want me to as well?” He nodded and she once more focused before looking up and saying “You should be able to access it in your memories as well.” Hotch let a “Damn, that’s cool” out under his breath and Jean smiled before looking to Rossi who nodded and said, “Impressive, and not that I would expect anything else but this is a very nice map, Reid.” 

Jean looked back to Emily and thought before saying “May I try and give it to you again.” She nodded and Jean replied, “try to actively reach for it, as if I’m handing you a piece of paper, but in your mind.” She closed her eyes and let out a breath before scrunching up her forehead. Once again she jolted back into Scott as if pushed and Emily brought a hand up to her forehead. Jean opened her eyes before saying “what are you feeling when I try to give it to you.” “It feels like someone’s I don’t know, pressing the hand into my head, but like it’s just an uncomfortable push, it’s not painful or anything.” Jean tilted her head in thought before saying “Were either of your parents mutants?” “Not that I know of at least, but I really don’t think so, and wouldn’t I know if I was one?” “I would think so, but I don’t know why else I wouldn’t be able to simply give you a memory, that’s one of the easiest things for a telepath to do unless it’s to someone shielding their memories, and their whole mind, tightly. Can you try something else?” “Yeah, now that we’ve gone to this much effort, I don’t care as much about the map as to why my brain is not cooperating.” “I want you to picture as if your brain is wrapped in shields around shields around shields that you're holding up, I want you to try and shove them down into the ground when I say to okay? Also, tell me if something I’m doing hurts and I’ll stop, I don’t want that to happen.” Emily nodded and Jean closed her eyes and let out a breath before saying “okay.” This time she didn’t jolt her forehead scrunched up before she physically pushed off the table and into Scott and said: “okay you can relax now.” She looked at Emily curiously before a hint of a smile showed on her face “Try and find the map in you memories Emily.” Emily’s eyes unfocused in thought before a smile spread on her face “Wow! That’s cool! Thank you, Jean, and Spencer. I’m sorry it was so much effort though.” Jean smiled, “It’s quite alright, though I am very curious, you have extraordinary mental shields, how they came to be if you are not a mutant, which I’m still not totally convinced of. I was barely able to get the map to you, it was like trying to slide a package through a narrow mail slot, I could barely get it in before you mind started closing up again.” “I’m not! Not that it would be a bad thing if I was, but I’ve never developed any powers or anything, and there’s nothing that looks different about me.” Jean just looked at her attentively when Emily added “Though, as anyone on the team can tell you, I can compartmentalize very well. I like to call it locking things up in little boxes and burying them away. Maybe that’s why it was harder because I box things up so tightly? I’ve been able to do it my whole life, traveling the world as an Ambassador’s daughter wasn’t the easiest childhood.” “Possibly, can I try something though.” “Sure” Follow me really fast, Spencer and Scott come too. 

They went into a hallway and into a room before Jean shut the door. “I’m going to have Remy try and sense your emotions from out there, and Spencer do it from in here, Scott is here to anchor me in case something happens I can help you. Okay?” Emily nodded and Jean wrote on a piece of paper, “think of a memory that has an extreme emotion attached, fear, joy, pain, sorrow, guilt, whatever you think of first.’ Emily nodded and Jean spoke again “I’m going to tell Remy to try and guess your emotion, Spencer you do the same.” Emily focused on the one memory that popped into her head as soon as Jean said guilt. That was the heaviest emotion she felt, while sadness and pain were right there with it. It hurt to think about, and she could feel the tears about to drip down her face, just as they did the one night she told Rossi about her abortion when she was 15 years old. She hated herself for that, not because she thinks she would’ve been a good mother, but all the events that led up to her doing drugs, getting pregnant, and having an abortion. 

Jean’s voice broke her out of her thoughts, “Emily?” “Yeah sorry, I was kind of lost in my thoughts.” “It’s okay, I’m going to have Remy come in here really fast, is that okay?” Emily nodded and the door opened and Remy walked in. He sat next to Emily on the bed and looked to Jean “What was that about Jeannie?” “I’m trying to see if she’s shielding emotions as tightly as her thoughts, and what would happen if she thought of something with strong emotions attached. For me, her shields seemed to drop millimeters and she was actually projecting little glimpses of a teenage boy and a hospital, but that’s all I got, and each glimpse was maybe half a second at most. Did you get anything off her emotions, either of you?” She addressed the question to Scott and Spencer. Spencer said “Maybe pain, guilt or regret, self-hatred? But they were just hints here and there, a second of this maybe a second of that, not much” He said the last emotion in an uncertain tone and Remy continued “I couldn’t even use ma empathy to feel her before ya told me to specifically focus on her, it was like there were only 3 people in da room and she wasn’t on of em. Like Penny, I only got glimpses, but I would say for sure pain and guilt, notin’ good dat’s for sure, lot of darkness.” Jean looked at Emily, “How accurate was any of that?” “Actually pretty good, they don’t paint the whole picture but you were right on the boy, and a medical clinic, and for the emotions, I was trying to focus on guilt, pain, maybe regret, so pretty good, why?” “I think you’re a duel path, Emily. An extraordinarily strong one but whenever they manifested, everything in your life was so painful, that all the power went into protecting you from others, that’s why I couldn’t get in, and your own emotions, the little boxes you were talking about. All of your energy went into shielding yourself that you never noticed they developed, so tightly protecting you that even consciously you can’t let your shields down and that only the strongest emotions can barely leak through. If you’d like the Professor could come out here, he’s an even stronger telepath than I am, if anyone can tell you for sure it’d be him.” “Well now I’m curious, so yeah, I think that’d be okay. For now, though I’m going to go back to the kitchen okay?” “Yeah, it’ll be at least 30 minutes before the Professor shows up anyway.” They all went back to the kitchen and were greeted with very curious looks. “Jean thinks I’m a path, but my shields are too tight for her or Remy or Spencer to sense anything so the Professor apparently is going to come and I guess tell me if I’m a mutant? I’m not totally sure but I said I’m really curious now. I mean, I couldn’t have gone my whole life and not noticed I was a telepath or empath though right?” “I don’t know but that’s what’s happening so until then, let’s eat some breakfast because I will never turn down food Rossi makes.” The team laughed and all grabbed plates before settling down at the kitchen table and island. Everyone was chatting and laughing, X-Men and BAU members alike were enjoying each other’s companies.

Derek spoke up randomly looking at Spencer, “We’ve been talking about powers so much this morning I just thought about this, I know it’s random but Reid, can’t water and electricity not touch?” “Um, not usually, or safely, no, the water would conduct electricity and shock anything that touched it.” The people who were close enough to hear and Logan who was a couple of seats down, turned to Derek and said: “The fuck kind of question is that?” Derek ignored him before responding to Reid “So you basically would’ve electrocuted me then.” “What are you talking about, I’ve never electrocuted you?” “The other afternoon, when we were both napping in the hotel before coming to your house, I wouldn’t get up and you said you would dump water on me if I didn’t get up, and you had that light ball floating above me filled with water.” Scott groaned and said, “Seriously Sherlock, X-men are  Supposed to use their powers for good, not picking on their friends…” “Technically, I wasn’t an X-Man at the moment, I was an FBI agent, and Derek, I had no idea what you were talking about, I meant like if you dropped your phone in the bathtub or something. I wasn’t going to shock you by dumping water all over you. Though I do like that idea…” Alex groaned this time “Thank you so much, Derek, he doesn’t need help coming up with ideas to prank people in the mansion, namely Remy, Logan, Scott, or I.” Derek mouthed “Sorry” as Spencer spoke again “I made a ball like what Jack was playing with that first night. I can insulate the energy so you can touch it, or I can fill it with water and not let any leak through. The energy is just being rearranged into matter that I can do stuff with. Once I insulate it, it can’t hurt you any more than a bouncy ball.” “Ohhh” “Yeah.”


	13. Chapter 13 - Meeting The Professor

About half an hour after the group had finished breakfast, the front door opened and the Professor came in. Spencer got up and went to greet the professor, as did Scott and Jean. After making idle chit chat for a moment he turned to Spencer “Would you care to introduce me to the team I’ve heard so much about, Spencer?” “Of course, Professor, this is Aaron Hotchner, my boss, and Jack’s dad. JJ-Jennifer Jereau-LaMontagne, the mother of my godson Henry, Derek Morgan, David Rossi, Penelope Garcia, our technical analyst, and finally Emily Prentiss. Guys this is Professor Xavier, leader of the X-Men and owner of the mansion we all talk about, as well as overseeing the school there.” The professor gave a polite nod before turning to Jean, “Not that I don’t appreciate this expedition, but with a large percentage of my school’s teacher’s gone, specifically Scott and Logan not being present to glare the students back into line, a group of them have taken the opportunity to run amuck throughout the school.” Scott shook his head at that and Logan growled, while Alex and Remy both let out little snickers. The Professor continued, “So if I may inquire as to what brought me here?” “Of course professor,” Jean replied before explaining knowing he would want details to better formulate a guess “This morning as breakfast was getting ready a bunch of Spencer’s teammates complained that they couldn’t remember where to go and were getting lost on their way to try and move about the house, so I suggested, if they would like, I could give them all the mental map Spencer gave me originally when he and Remy built this house.” “I see, and what was the problem with that?” “I gave the map to Penelope first, then JJ, then Derek, but when I tried to open Emily’s mind to give her the map I couldn’t. I gave it to Hotch and Dave after that but when I went back to Emily, I couldn’t once again. I tried a couple of things before telling her to picture multiple layers of shields around her mind and to picture shoving them into the ground but even at that I was barely able to get the map to her before her minds started pushing me out, and that was the first time I had been able to even touch her shields without getting violently shoved back…” She trailed off looking around and noticing the many people avidly paying attention “How about we move to another room so you could talk to Emily as well.” Charles looked up as well before saying “Yes, that would be wise. Spencer, Remy, Scott, Jean, if you 4 could come as well.” He looked away from his X-Men before fixing a kind smile onto Emily “would you like to go to the study please?” She nodded and got up before seemingly hesitantly following all of them over to the elevators and leaning against the wall, attempting to portray her ever-present cool, collectedness. 

They all went into the office of Spencer and Remy’s study, Emily setting down on the couch with Spencer closest to her, offering a familiar presence, as well as Remy who stayed close. Charles noticed how important this woman was to his youngest X-Man and how Remy was hovering protectively, having evidently already wormed past his rough, Cajun exterior bringing a hint of a smile to his face. He knew from stories, Spencer viewed the woman seated in front of him like an older sister and would not hesitate to step in if he felt something might harm his family. Jean sat in a chair next to him with Scott to her other side, knowing he would likely need to anchor her at some point. Charles trusted the woman to his left with almost everything in him, but knowing her slight empathetic abilities made it easier for her to get caught in a person’s emotional turmoil, and would need a steady anchor to pull he way back out, whereas he rarely did, holding enough power on his own to be able to almost always anchor himself. He could see the slight tenseness in her posture, the only evidence of her feeling any unease whatsoever that he could find, internal, or external. He gave her a gentle smile before beginning “What would you prefer me to call you Agent Prentiss?” “Just Emily’s fine” “Okay, Jean filled me in on the elevator ride about what happened when she had Remy and Spencer try to sense your emotions. She told me that you had practically impenetrable shields, that also keep anything from coming out as well as in, and that the only time anyone was able to get any type of feedback off you was when you were thinking about your emotional memory. Does that match up so far?” “Yeah, I think so.” “I just want to make it clear to you, whether you are or are not any type of path does not necessarily have to have any type of effect on your life, and if any time you want to stop anything or not answer any questions you don’t have to. Okay?” Emily nodded.

The Professor spoke, “First I’m just going to try and open a link between our minds, it really shouldn’t hurt alright?” “Yes.” He narrowed his eyes focusing in on her as the rest of the room watched in silence, his eyes closed fully as his hands clenched and he leaned forward. He drew in a deep breath and Emily’s eyes clenched and brought a hand to her forehead. He sat back up and let out a deep breath, before panting “I could… not get… in.” The group looked at him in shock. “If I had to estimate she had 5-6 layers of shields, I used all my energy to get past two before I had to pull back.” If the Professor couldn’t get in… then what? 

“Emily,” the Professor got her attention onto him, “Just as you did for Jean, I want you to picture being surrounded by rings of shields around your mind and when I say, consciously try to push them down away from you, unless it physically hurts, I want you to try and keep them down as long as possible okay?” She nodded and he closed his eyes and focused before saying “okay Emily.” She closed her eyes and tried to push them down, 1...2...3...4...5...6… and “Hello Emily.” She jumped back and he said “It’s okay, I believe you are definitely some kind of path. You finally let me in, this is good Emily.” The rest of the room saw a small smile crack the Professor’s face and Emily relax just slightly, something good was happening. The professor spoke again, in Emily’s mind, “Can you try to talk back to me like this?” She was unsure how but decided to just try and send her thoughts to him “Hello professor? What is this?” “I believe you are a telepath my dear, an extraordinarily strong one. Now Emily, when I tried to enter your mind this time and you slowly lowered your shields, I wrapped mine around you so you would only be able to hear me, can I try to remove them and see if you can sense anyone else in the room?” “Okay” He slowly pulled his mental shields back to himself but she felt slammed by emotions and thoughts and ‘Oh God it hurt’, that was all she could think. She let out a cry before she pressed her hands over her ears and buried her head into her knees. It was so loud, she could feel so much, and then it was quiet. She hadn’t noticed the worry on the others’ faces, or the fear and shock when the Professor slammed back in his wheelchair. 

She pulled her hands off slowly and when nothing changed she slowly picked her head up and noticing the worried looks started panicking “Oh my god, what did I do, are you guys okay?” They nodded but she wasn’t convinced but then Remy pulled her into his side and spoke softly in French, knowing her history from Spencer and the gentle language would help bring her out of her panic state. “ _ Emily, regarde-moi, regarde Remy. Respirez profondément, vous allez bien. Tu n'as fait de mal à personne. Je pense qu'il est sûr de dire que vous êtes un chemin de duel très fort, Hmm?” _ (Emily, look at me, look at Remy. Deep breathe, you're okay. You didn't hurt anyone. I think it's safe to say you're a very strong duel path though, Hmm?) She nodded starting to breathe easier again so Remy continued “ _ Je sais que je parle français en ce moment, tu as vécu leur petite enfance, non? L'avez-vous aimé là-bas? _ ” (I know I'm speaking French right now, you lived there briefly growing up, right? Did you like it there?) “Yeah, we didn’t live there long, it was nice though.” Remy smiled “You okay now  _ mon ami _ ?” Emily nodded and looked back at the professor who noticing she was okay again said “Well my dear, I think it’s pretty safe to say you are an extraordinarily strong telepath, I think maybe a double path honestly. Right at the end there, you yanked your shield back up and threw me out of your mind, what happened?” “I don’t know. Everything hurt, it was so loud, so strong, I just needed everything quiet again.” Charles nodded and said, “what was loud, thoughts or emotions?” “Both I think, it felt like everything was slamming into my brain.” Charles nodded and said, “You, my dear, are a very strong dual path, telepathy, and empathy,” Emily nodded, a little shock but he continued “I’m sure this is a little bit of a shock to you, but obviously, it doesn’t have any effect on your daily life. If you have any interest, I would be more than happy to help you with some training for your powers, or even Jean or Remy or Spencer I’m sure would be willing to help you if they can. It doesn’t seem to be completely necessary because your shields have developed so tightly and you only use your powers defensively, it can’t really harm anyone unless you start to lose control of it, which is doubtful because you’ve gone so long without even knowing about it. If you would ever like to try and work with your powers, I am more than willing to help you to any extent I can, or if you would like to think about it awhile and then decide that is completely fine.” Emily nodded “I think I’ll think about it for a little while, it’s just a lot to learn, so late in my life. I do have a question though?” Charles nodded “How did I develop them, or when, I suppose is more accurate, shouldn’t I have noticed it?” Charles said “Likely somewhere between 10-15, during some moment of extreme stress or happiness, or any emotion really. Normally, yes, you would have noticed it, but I’m going to guess for you it was a bad time they developed which is why you threw all your energy into protecting yourself with them.” Emily nodded, accepting that, but clearly trying to think about it.

The room was quiet for a bit before Charles asked, “You are trying to figure out when it happened, correct, my dear?” Emily nodded before sighing “The problem is you said it was probably when I was feeling an extreme, negative emotion, so I’m trying to narrow down memories when I was a kid by that, but…” She gave a tiny derisive laugh “That was an overwhelmingly large portion of my childhood growing up around the world, so it really doesn’t narrow down much of anything.” The Professor tilted his head in thought before saying “Was there ever a time, where it seemed like everything went quiet. I mean, like you still felt the negative emotions, but they didn’t seem to be affecting you as much, or seeping into you as far? You felt like you could block out the negative emotions you were feeling more, lock them down tighter in your boxes, as you described them, so they couldn’t affect you as much.” The whole group saw realization pass over her face along with shock and pain before her face cleared all emotion off it but both Spencer and Remy still caught microscopic glimpses of extreme pain and guilt. “How old were you?” The professor asked gently. “15” She croaked out, feeling like her whole throat was stuffed with cotton balls. “Will tell me what happened.” Her face paled briefly before she steeled it and rasped out “I don’t really want to talk about it, I’ve only ever told 2 people in my life. I was in a bad place, making some stupid decisions, with some painful consequences.” She went quiet again and the professor continued “that’s fine, you don’t have to say anymore if you don’t want to” She quickly shook her head and he gave her a gentle smile “But, I would guess that’s when they first manifested Emily.” She nodded, all traces of the previous pain gone as she gave him one of her practiced smiles. “Thank you, Professor.” “Of course Emily. This is my phone number if you’d ever like to call e directly, or you can always ask Spencer and he can put you in contact with me.” She nodded.

The professor addressed the whole room, “I think that’s enough for today, why don’t we head back downstairs, Emily whatever you want to tell any of your team is fine, none of us will say anything you don’t want us to, but I believe I should be getting back to the school now if there’s nothing else?” They all nodded and headed back to the kitchen. Emily explained what the professor had told her, but said she was just going to think about it for a while before potentially doing anything. Then the professor left, and everyone moved on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all that morning, for which she was extremely grateful, though Reid had taken her aside briefly and said that if she ever wanted to test out her powers either alone or with him or someone else she just had to ask and he would show her how to use the training room in the basement. He then jokingly added, “congratulations, you earned a special ticket into the room none of the rest of the team can go alone.” which made her let out a little laugh before they joined back into the conversation the whole group was having. 

Later that day, at 4:00 Spencer, JJ and Hotch all set out in one of the large SUVs to go pick up Will and the kids from the airport and to bring them back to the house. The pickup was uneventful and Will was very grateful to Spencer for the vacation, while Jack and Henry were thrilled, expressing their joy in the way only 9 and 6-year-old best friends could do. (I’m not sure if I set ages for them earlier in the story but if I did I’m changing them to Jack being 9 and Henry being 6). They got back to the house and Will was seriously impressed with Spencer and Remy, who greeted him heartily when they walked in the door, and both kids were beyond amazed at the palace they were entering. He was introduced to the X-men he didn’t know and greeted them all kindly before Spencer gave him his own key, explaining everything he had to the others the previous night. The kids reminded Spencer of something he had forgotten to point that out to the team. He gathered them all in front of an electric panel that a few of them had noticed all over the mansion but hadn’t asked about and Spencer explained “I forgot to explain these last night because they’re helpful for everyone when dinner’s ready or something but I originally designed them with the kids in mind. Also, we built this house when they were a little younger and I wasn’t sure how good they’d be with not getting lost so if you can’t find someone you can use this speaker that is housewide to find them You can direct it by floor, or specifically by room if you know where they are and are just calling them to the kitchen or something, or housewide if you’re looking for someone. That’s the basic purpose. The one’s in your sitting areas in your suites can have their volume adjusted manually, or you can set a schedule for when you go to bed so it doesn’t wake you up. You can also use them to change the lighting, or in certain rooms play music. They can change the temperature and in rooms with remote-controlled curtains, they can control those too. The one in the pool room can do all sorts of fun stuff to the pool. Those are the basics anyway but they’re all a little special based on the room they’re in. Okay?” Everyone nodded and Spencer looked to Jack and Henry and putting Henry on his hip so he could see better said “See this red button in the corner?” They both nodded “If you’re lost or can’t figure out where your parents you can press it and speak across the whole house, even through walls, but you don’t want to just play with it because everyone in the house will hear it okay?” They both nodded again and Jack said “Okay Uncle Spencer, but I’m not gonna get lost” A couple of the adults cracked smiles knowing they had gotten lost just that morning and they were trained in remembering things but nodded indulgently for him. 

They all went on another tour, or the first one for Will and the kids and at the end, Spencer looked to the kids outside of a closed door, that none of the adults remembered seeing. “So I didn’t tell your parents or aunts and uncles yesterday but you two have a huge playroom full of toys, you guys want to go in first?” JJ, Will, and Hotch groaned slightly while Henry nodded excitedly and squirmed out of his mom’s grip, after getting tired halfway through the tour. They both raced to the door and opened it causing their jaws to drop and they each squished Spencer and Remy in hugs before racing into the room. The adults followed them and gasped, JJ turned to Spencer and Remy “You guys seriously didn’t have to do this, they’re never going to want to leave you know.” Remy smirked, “dey’re only missin’ what, Penny, 2 days of classes, dey can have some fun, it’s okay.” Will looked around the room and groaned “You are not going to be a good influence on these chil’ren are ya Remy?” “Remy don’t know what ‘y talkin’ bout Will, Remy be  _ bien _ , promise, he’s jus’ gon’ be de best uncle to de chil’ren eve’.” “I’m sure you will, can you not spoil them in the process.” Remy shrugged and all of the adults cracked up, minus JJ, Will, and Hotch who were doing their best to fight back smiles, but Hotch’s came through when he turned to watch the kids in pure bliss, playing on the indoor playground at the moment. There was the playground, a kid’s size basketball hoop in one corner, a corner with some of their kids’ favorite books and fun chairs, a table with various art supplies, even a small-ish trampoline in a cut out windowed area. On top of all that, the whole room floor was padded except right around the basketball area so minimize crazy kids’ injuries. Spencer spoke up, “In that corner, there’s a fridge and big people size sitting area and there’s a padlock on the trampoline so they can’t get into without supervision. The key is up in the tray on the corner of that bookshelf on the end there, so easily accessible, they’re just too short to reach it, for now at least, we may have to move it at some point though.”

Will spoke after a moment, “This is really nice Spencer, Remy, thank you for having all of us out here. I have no idea how the rest of you don’t get lost though, it’s going to take me at least a week to figure out my way around here.” He added the last part quieter and mostly aimed at his wife who exchanged a glance with Spencer, Jean, Logan, Derek, and Rossi who were standing close enough to hear and he noticed and said “what?” JJ tugged him into the family and Spencer, Remy, Scott, and Jean followed. JJ spoke up, “Um, we haven’t actually all learned the layout already, Jean helped us out this morning, almost all of us got lost on our way to the gym or breakfast this morning.” Will’s eyes widened “Okay, that makes more sense, how though?” Spencer spoke up then, “Well, you know Jean’s a telepath, so when she first visited here I gave her a mental map for her to follow, and she shared it with the rest of the team this morning so they could follow it as well. If you want, she could send it to you too?” “That is…” Jean spoke up with a hint of an indulgent smile “Weird, I know, it’s not offensive, it’s just an unusual thought for you, whereas it’s a kind of everyday occurrence for us. If you don’t want me to I won’t but I’m more than happy too if you’d like.” He glanced to JJ, “Does it feel weird?” “No I couldn’t even feel anything, it was just there unless you’re actually a mutant and you’ve been hiding it from me this whole time” She added the last part with a laugh. He shook his head and looked to Jean before asking “Is it okay if I say yes just because I’ve always been curious how telepathy works.?” She let out a tiny laugh and said: “Yes, that’s fine, you could always just ask though if you don’t want me to touch your mind.” “No it’s fine, I think it’s just been a thing from growing up, what kid doesn’t want to be a superhero and telepathy is a really common thing portrayed in movies.” She nodded kindly before checking “You want me to give you the map though?” “Yeah, sure.” Her eyes unfocused briefly before clearing and smiling “You should be able to pull it up just like a memory now Will. Just think as if you’ve seen a physical map of the house and try to picture it and look around it.” He nodded before saying “wow, that's weird, and also really cool. This is an impressive map Jean.” She smiled and said “Thank you, but Spencer made it, he just passed it to me.” Will looked at Spencer “Then thank you too, and this is a very good map.”

They went back into the playroom and watched the kids play for a while before everyone was hungry so they went to go have some dinner. They had a nice night and chatted for a while, before the X-Men, minus Remy, headed back to the mansion, they couldn’t leave the school so short for too long, though the Summers brothers and Logan promised to visit soon. 


	14. Chapter 14 - New Case

The team had returned from vacation well-rested, happy, and ready to get back to work, even if Henry and Jack were more than willing to stay in Uncle Spence’s palace for a little while longer. They dove right back into work and went on case after case when one Monday evening Spencer came into Hotch’s office after everyone else had left for the day. 

“Hey Hotch, you got a second?”

“Yeah, sure Reid, what’s up?”

“I’m going to need to take the next uh 4 days off if it’s at all possible.”

“Yeah, that should be okay, I was lining up a case for us to head off on tomorrow, but I think we should be able to manage it. How out of touch are you though, if we need a little help on something can we call you or are you completely off the grid for a couple of days?”

“You can call me, I might not be able to answer it right away, but I’ll try to get back to you at least by that night, it’s going to be a busy couple of days for me.”

“That’s fine, anything you need help with?”

Reid cracked a tiny smile “Let’s just say it’s an uh, family emergency.”

Hotch cracked a smirk before his face went flat again “And I’m going to guess it’s not the type located in Las Vegas.”

“Uh, no” He glanced out Hotch’s office window before saying, “It’s the terrorist trying to crumble the American military type.”

Hotch’s eyebrows raised a fraction before he said, “Good Luck, Reid, call us if there is anything we can do.” 

Reid nodded and slipped out of his office leaving Hotch to contemplate what Reid just told him. Damn, someday, he’d like to see what his shy, unassuming agent could really do if the FBI would review their uniformed attitude against the X-Men and mutants in general. He knew it was probably better he didn’t know, but he would certainly be curious what Reid did on his missions.

The next morning…

Hotch walked through the bullpen heading to the conference room “briefing in 5!” Derek groaned before heading to the break room for coffee and then up to the conference room. Once everyone was in there he spoke up “Hey Hotch, where’s Reid? He’s never late.” Hotch nodded “No, he’s not, he requested the next 4 days off for a family emergency.” JJ spoke up “Oh no, is his mom okay?” Hotch’s face twitched for half a second before he said: “As far as I know his mother is completely fine.” Derek looked confused and Emily tapped her head “not that family” “What? Ohhh. You know where he went?” “Nope, just know something bad’s happening, but for now we’ve got out own case to focus on.”

Garcia spoke up “Alright my fantastic crime fighters, you are going to San Francisco, California. Someone is torturing and murdering people out there. And I mean horrifically torturing them, both fire and electrical burns, beaten and broken bones, autopsy reports have shown hyperextended muscles and signs of extreme restraints. They’re taking men and women in their twenties or thirties, all blond, all extremely fit, 2 were employed in two different Military bases there. All the injuries suggest they’re kept for about 5 days before finally killed by a fatal burn to the face and throat. It’s bad. There are 4 victims so far, one still hasn’t been identified, too much of his face was burned. One last thing, all the victims have had the American eagle carved into their chests postmortem.” The entire team cringed at some of the photos, even Rossi and Hotch winced at some of the worse images. Hotch spoke up, “Wheels up in 30, this is obviously a bad one, and someone with serious anger at their victims. We need to be prepared for local resistance, this could turn into a mutant hate crime quickly, which could hurt local cooperation.”

The team boarded the plane, and after discussing a preliminary profile, settled back to rest for the rest of the flight. Surprisingly, Emily was the one to ask what a lot of them had been thinking, “Hotch, do you know where Reid was going?” 

“No, I don’t, he just told me last night that he had a family emergency and would need the next 4 days off.” 

“He say anything else?” Derek questioned.

“I questioned if his mom was okay and he replied that it was the type of family emergency where ‘terrorists were trying to collapse the American military’.” 

Emily’s mouth opened and she just said “Oh.” while Derek said “Damn. Though that does make you wonder how much the X-men and other groups do to foil violent plans like that before they reach us, or even local police.” Rossi nodded thoughtfully and said, “I think they do a lot more than most people think about, and with less, because they have to stay under law enforcement’s radar.”

When they got to the station, it was about 11 am local time, so they worked on the profile all day while Garcia did her magic research. At about 8 pm they all headed back to the hotel, having been a very long day with the time changes. They got up at 7:30 the next morning, and met up for breakfast at 8, getting to the station at 9. 

They got a call from Garcia pretty early that morning at the station, “Hello again my beautiful crime fighters, so I’ve been working all morning, well morning for me, it’s just after noon here, but anyway, I think you might have someone attacking people with connections to the military. We finally have an ID on the unidentified man that was found Monday night. He was a sergeant at a local air force base. The other man was a Captain at a naval base. And, both women were daughters of Sergeants, one at the same naval base as our captain, and the other at a coast guard station.” Derek smiled at her image on the screen, “Thanks mama, you’re a genius.” “Of course I am, I shall continue looking, PG out.”

The team all looked at each other, and Rossi spoke, “Well we definitely have a connection, but they’re not all at the same base, or even same branch, this seems to be an attack on the military in general.” Derek looked up “Not to get off track, but doesn’t that sound exactly like what Reid said he was working on?” JJ nodded “Do we know if any victims are mutants, or if this is a hate crime against them? Because Derek’s right, they sound similar, but there would have to be a mutant aspect we’re missing to draw the X-Men out here.” Hotch’s face looked very unhappy. “If it is the same, I want to know where the complete disconnect in Law Enforcement is, and why we are getting cases to us so much slower than them. That time in New York, Scott already had a whole file worth of other crime scenes to add to ours, and here, too?” The team just looked away while JJ shrugged a tiny bit before saying “I present cases to you as fast as I get them.” He sighed, “I know, I’m not blaming you, it’s just frustrating, that we could get on top of these faster if we knew sooner.” JJ nodded but added, “From what I know, even when a local station calls us in specifically, they go to the FBI’s public intake department or whatever it’s called, and they sort through the cases we were requested on and redirect them if they don’t think it’s bad enough for us to take, then I get them and sort by priority, and present those to you.” Hotch just nodded and said, “Well let’s get back to work, I want to try and be able to present at least a partial profile by tonight.”

After a while of working and looking through crime scene photos and other reports, Emily spoke up “What if it’s multiple unsubs, these guys, even the women, are in perfect shape, they wouldn’t have been easy to subdue. What if we’re looking at one person with some kind of grudge against the military, and someone loyal to them helping them get their perceived revenge.” Hotch looked thoughtful “I think that’s the best we’ve got to go with right now, so let’s try and brainstorm what they could have against the military as a whole. Maybe… so far there are no connections to the Marines or Army, that could be a coincidence, or not, but is there any type of policy that applies to all the branches except those two?” 

Derek winced a little before asking “Hotch, could we try and call Reid, he’d be the best chance at just knowing regulations and their variations off the top of his head.”

Hotch nodded “He said we could call, but wasn’t sure he’d be able to always answer.” 

Emily shrugged, “it’s worth a shot.”

Hotch called and got his voicemail, but left a message. “We’ll see if he gets back to us soon. For now, let’s run on the assumption that it’s just a coincidence, and look at maybe regulations to get into any branch of the military. Let’s have Garcia start looking at dishonorable discharges out of a base in or near San Francisco.” 

By the end of the day, they didn’t think they’re profile was complete yet, but had a pretty good base, so they went ahead and presented that, before heading back to the hotel that night. Right as they were walking into the hotel Hotch’s phone rang. “Oh it’s Reid guys, you can go up, I’ll let you know if he comes up with anything.” Derek piped up, “We want to talk to him too.” 

“Alright, let's go to my room, we can put it on speaker there, though I do not want any of you pushing for information he doesn’t want to, or shouldn’t give, got it?” They nodded and entered his hotel room. Hotch answered and said, “Hi Reid, the whole team wants to talk to you so I’m going to put the phone on speaker okay?” Hotch put the phone on speaker and set it on the table and they heard Reid's voice. “Hey, guys! What’s up?” Derek spoke up “Hey pretty boy, how are you?” “Good, how are you guys, how’s the case going.” Hotch replied “Pretty good, we actually were hoping you could help us on the case a little?” “Yeah sure, I’m just in a car right now, we’re heading to get some food. What can I do for you?” In Reid’s car, he was getting a lot of interested stares from almost everyone other than Jean, who was driving, though she seemed to be glancing back every so often to look at him, and Remy was showing no shame in blatantly staring at Reid. He looked around the car before hissing, “Could you all not? It’s creepy.” Derek asked over the phone “What, Reid?” “Not you guys, everyone in this car is just NOSY and staring at me.” “Oh okay.”

Hotch spoke again “So we’re on a case where someone or a group of unsubs is torturing and killing people with some kind of military connection, but the only branches with no connections are the Marines and Army, everything else has at least one hit. Are there any regulations you can think of that we might not have been able to find on maybe admittance into those branches that are different from any of the others?” “Honestly, not really that would apply to both the army and marines, I mean they both have some land aspect, but beyond that, I’ll think on it and text you if I come up with anything. Okay?”

“That’s fine Reid, stay safe!” JJ called from where she was sitting.

“Bye guys, you too!”

_ The next morning (Thursday morning in case you’ve lost track, The last body was Monday night so they have until Saturday before they’re expecting to find another body.)... _

They were working in the conference room trying to sort through some potential names that had popped up on their radar as recent dishonorable discharges and people who had been denied entry into any branch of the military when Emily had an idea to narrow down the extensive list of names they were going through. She called Garcia and put it on speaker “Hello my brunette beauty, how may the technical goddess assist you?” “Hey PG, we’re sorting through these names but there are almost a thousand names to look through so I had an idea, can you add some filters to the whole list for me?” “Child’s play, Ms. Prentiss, challenge me please.” 

“Sorry but this is all I got for right now, first go down to just rejected applicants, I think that’s more likely with the cross branch action, if it was a discharge I think they would focus on the branch they were in” The team nodded thoughtfully as they listened, agreeing with her deduction.

“Done, still a couple hundred though.”

“Okay next, go to someone who applied to the navy, coast guard, and air force, but was obviously rejected from all of them.” 

“Down to about a hundred, some of them also applied to the army, and marines, some had only those 3.”

“Okay, the carvings suggest anger at the American military as a whole with the eagle, let's try those who applied to all of them first.”

“42 ma’am.”

Derek added “I think Prentiss got the right track here, what do you get if they need to have applied to the navy first, and coast guard or air force 2nd and the other 3rd, so the army and marines were the last two. His first kill was a navy man so that was probably the first to reject him.”

“4”

“You are a God PG, that’ll be a lot easier to sort through”

“Coming to your devices now, PG out”

Hotch looked to Prentiss “Nice work, that was a good idea, hopefully, someone should stand out in these 4.”

They printed out the 4 files and started flipping through them. Rossi spoke up first, “I think my guy’s out, he was rejected because he couldn’t pass any of the physical fitness tests, and we profiled they would likely need to be very strong, even with a partner, to subdue any of the victims.” Hotch nodded and added, “Same thing here, though he was rejected because he didn’t pass his medical exams, he was too overweight, I doubt he could have overpowered these women, much less trained soldiers.” Emily jokingly scoffed “I think JJ and I should be offended by that statement.” Hotch actually spluttered making the male team members snicker “That’s not what I meant at all, I-I wasn’t trying to imply th-that women were incapable of defending themselves, I me-eant…” Emily leaned across the table and put a finger up in front of his face, “I was just joking Hotch, we knew what you meant, you're fine if you'd like we can do a round on the mats back in Quantico and I can show you just how strong he’d need to be to take down a woman.” “Not necessary, I am sorry though, I didn’t realize how that sounded.” JJ piped up “You’re fine Hotch, neither of us is mad, seriously.” 

Hotch let out a breath and said: “either of the other two stand out.” Derek said, “not an exact fit, but pretty close to the profile, though I can’t figure out his motive other than being rejected, it was for a heart murmur every time, couldn’t pass his physical, that’s not in the military’s control, that’s the docs, I just don’t think it would give him this level of anger.” 

Emily spoke up, “That may not, but I think JJ and I have him. Kyle Baker. Fits the profile almost perfectly. After his first rejection from the navy, he went ballistic at the recruiter who told him no, spent the next week and a half calling every name at every level he thought could change the decision, stopping right about a week and a half before the first kill. And, he’s got a motive, rode the discrimination train, hard.” Derek looked over and scrunched his forehead “He’s white, with one of the whitest names I’ve ever heard.” 

“But he’s a mutant, with a very visible mutation, his skin has a slightly reddish glowing tint to it, because according to his applications, he’s a pyrotech.” 

Rossi spoke up “That’s fire right? All the final causes of death have been that they were burned to death, though tortured with it beforehand.”

Emily nodded, “Yes it is, and while the military accepts mutants now, those with obvious mutations tend to get overlooked, and the kicker, his dad was just as vocal with the phone calls and discrimination calls as his son, he’s also a mutant, and they live together, just the two of them, out in a rural farmhouse about 30 minutes out of city limits. I think it’s him.”


	15. Chapter 15 - Damn Pretty Boy

_ “...while the military accepts mutants now, those with obvious mutations tend to get overlooked, and the kicker, his dad was just as vocal with the phone calls and discrimination calls as his son, he’s also a mutant, and they live together, just the two of them, out in a rural farmhouse about 30 minutes out of city limits. I think it’s him.” _

Hotch nodded, “I agree, let’s suit up and bring this SOB in. I think we should head out alone, it’s 30 minutes out of city limits so the locals don’t technically have jurisdiction out there anyways, this’ll be less of a legal hassle.” The team nodded and proceeded to get ready before heading to the vehicles, while Hotch informed the police chief that they had a potential unsub, but it was well out of city limits so they were just going to check it out themselves.” The chief nodded and said, “Saves me the legal paperwork anyway, if you need any backup, just call into the station, we’ll be ready.” “Thank you chief.” And with that, Hotch slipped out of the station as well and over to one of the SUVs before sliding into the passenger seat. They had been driving for barely 5 minutes, when Derek spoke up, “You know Hotch, I would’ve sworn I saw Scott and Remy entering an elevator in the hotel this morning as we were leaving the breakfast area to head to the station, and if they’re here, pretty boy probably is too.” Emily piped up from the backseat “Seriously, you think they’re on a mission for the same case we’re on?”

“Maybe not the same case, but I think they’re here in San Francisco at least”

Hotch looked up from where he was coordinating with JJ in the other car, “They may well be, we never asked him where he was if you’d like you can call him when we get back to the hotel tonight, even if everything wraps up tonight, the jet’s not going to be available until tomorrow at 2 pm. Something was messed up with one of the gauges, it’s not getting repaired until tomorrow morning and then it has to fly Cooper’s team back to DC first, they’ve been stuck since this morning. But may I suggest focusing on the raid we’re about to go on?” 

“C’mon Hotch, aren’t at least a little curious?”

“I’m plenty curious, I can just contain myself better, especially when we’re less than 30 minutes from facing down two mutant unsubs with powers we have no way to combat aside from shooting them, which I would rather not do.” Hotch snarked.

Emily had the grace to blush and look scolded, while Derek just looked embarrassed at being called out.

The scene the two cars pulled up to was most definitely, not what they were expecting. There seemed to be a fight going on between four leather-clad members of the X-men, and two unsubs, while another two members were helping calm a girl, who was shivering and crying, wrapped in only a blanket by a tree at the front. They could tell right away that while they, or the X-Men rather, had gotten there in time to save her life, she would deal with mental and physical scars for her lifetime. Her legs showed blue marks of being electrocuted as well as minor burns from fire. Almost every inch of her skin they could see was covered in bruises of varying colors, one leg was obviously broken, as was it seemed, one of her arms.

The ambulance pulled up behind the cars and then the two ladies that were helping the victim, their assumptions were Jean and Ororo by the striking hair colors, calm down, and helped to usher her to the ambulance for immediate treatment and to allow her to leave the scene.

The BAU watched the remaining four members fighting an obviously teleporting man, who they determined to be the father, he jumped in front and behind them, in small bursts of smoke, as well as another that seemed to be shooting fireballs, who they determined to be the son. Ororo joined Scott, and who they believed to be Alex and Logan, though he was wearing a mask. They watched in awe as Logan charged at Kyle, while Scott distracted him with his blasts, leaving him open for the attack from the wolverine, who with brute force took the pyro unsub to the ground and despite a fireball blasting his side and upper leg, quickly wrapped an inhibitor bracelet on him, before shocking the BAU as his pinned his throat between two claws and snarling “No powers now, you try and move one millimeter and I’ll slit your neck.” The unsub laid there frozen in fear, though the BAU did not dare approach, both in shock watching as his skin slowly healed before them, and knowing the other unsub was still plenty dangerous to them. 

They turned and watched as damn, Spencer, Jean, and Remy fought the teleporter. Remy, in his standard brown leather trench coat, was spinning in circles with a bö, fighting off the teleporter who seemed to be appearing and disappearing in circles around him, oblivious to the arrival of the agents. They watched as Spencer launched bolts of energy all around the teleporter, slowing his teleportation trying to dodge them, and letting Remy get more hits in. Jean threw a rock into the teleporter’s path, sending him stumbling to the ground, where Spencer quickly pinned him to the ground with arcs of energy circling his wrists and ankles, allowing Jean to slap an inhibitor bracelet on him, before growling in a voice they’d never come out of the gentle genius before, “Pure electricity hurts you son of a bitch so unless you would prefer me to fry your brains out don’t move a fucking inch.” Alex looked up at the BAU team and said in a flat tone, with just a hint of sarcasm, “You can come handcuff them now, they’re safe.” Spencer’s head shot up, having not noticed their audience, and blushed bright red. 

The unsub tried to take advantage of his captor's distraction but had barely tried to pull his hand from under the arc of electricity when Spencer’s head flipped around so fast the team though he might give himself whiplash, “Move a fucking inch bub, I dare you,” he growled. 

Rossi walked to the son first and spun him onto his stomach while Logan pulled his claws back in, and slapped cuffs on him before allowing Logan to help drag him to his feet and over to the back of one of their SUVs. JJ had put the temporary grate up, that they only put in while transporting suspects, just to be on the safe side so Rossi just tossed him into a seat and buckled him in before slamming the door. Derek had walked over to the other suspect and reached to tap Spencer so he could handcuff the father but stopped in his tracks at Scott’s “DON’T!” Derek looked up and Scott continued as he walked over “Look at his hand, it’s shaking, he took in too much energy when he was throwing the bolts, if you touch him you’ll get shocked yourself. Spencer, you have your cuffs?” “They unclipped in the kitchen of the house, Jean, can you grab them?” She nodded and headed for the house while Scott turned to Derek, “Can I see your cuffs?” Derek handed them over and Scott looked to Spencer “Free his left foot and hand.” Once those two bands of electricity disappeared, Scott flipped him over and put the cuff around one hand, prompting Spencer to release his right hand allowing him to be completely cuffed. The last band around his foot disappeared and Scott hauled the unsub to his feet before handing the unsub to Derek.

Scott called Alex over and they dragged Spencer to the side of the house, still slightly shaking from the energy, where Scott said: “Blast us, one of your team’s going to touch you and you need to have burned the energy by then.” Spencer shook his head to which Spencer snapped “Just fucking blast us pidge, you know we can take the energy, you physically can’t hurt us.” “I’ll fry your uniforms still, though.” Scott snorted “I think I know the person who can get more, just blast us before someone comes over and sees.” Spencer nodded and sent massive, bright, electrical blasts into both of his brothers, with an audible crackle into the air, knocking them both to the ground, until his hands steadied and he pulled his charge back in. “You good now pidge?” Spencer nodded “Yeah, I shouldn’t have pulled so much power in, but I didn’t know how long it was going to take to pin him” Scott nodded and started walking back to the group, but not before saying “You’re fine sherlock, you got him down and didn’t hurt anyone, even if Derek did try and fry himself,” he added with a snort. Alex added, “yeah, it’s all good pidge.” 

They rejoined the group and the BAU team’s jaws dropped at the sight of Alex and Scott while Jean just tossed them jackets, from… somewhere, that they quickly zipped on. Derek was the first to recover from seeing the two of them return with their uniforms scorched and tattered, but even then all he said was “Reid, what the fuck did you do to them over there?” He blushed and looked down before saying “I pulled in too much power during the fight, that’s why you couldn’t touch me, I had so much my control was slipping, but some type of brotherly thing, it doesn’t matter how much energy I hit either of them with, it doesn't affect them. Though clothes don’t really stand up to the level of power I shot at them, we’ve all done it to one another at some point, though it’s usually me since they create their own energy, the only way for them to have too much is if they consciously create too much for a fight, where I can pull in too much from the environment.” 

JJ looked confused “So you blasted them intentionally?”

“Yeah, so that I wouldn’t accidentally hit someone that it could hurt since it doesn’t affect them.”

“And those little blasts we saw, destroyed their shirts that much?” Prentiss questioned.

“No those were controlled, I sent a couple hundred thousand volts at each of them, to get all the extra energy out quickly.”

“Th-that should’ve killed them…”

“Right, but like I said, I can’t hurt them by directly blasting them with my powers, though we sometimes screw around and charge objects to hit each other with, that’s another thing entirely, I could blast them each with a couple million volts and all it would do is knock them over from the force of hitting them, it wouldn’t actually hurt them.”

“How much were those little bolts?”

“Somewhere around 10,000 volts, they were insulated though, it wouldn’t have actually fried him if he tried to move, that was just a threat.”

Hotch spoke up “As actually enlightening and interesting that explanation was, we should probably take these guys back and book them. You guys want to meet up for lunch somewhere, our jet isn’t taking us back until tomorrow afternoon because of repairs.” The X-Men all looked to Scott who said: “Why not, the professor doesn’t have anything urgent right?” He asked with a look to Jean who shook her head “We can stay a little longer. I think we all need to head back to our hotel though and clean up before eating anywhere, and you guys need to do your fancy FBI things and book them still.” Hotch nodded “We’ll call you after we’re done and cleaned up, sound good?” Scott nodded so the BAU headed back to the station to interrogate and book the unsubs, which was very easy, they both confessed almost immediately, spewing their speeches on how Kyle was discriminated against.

Hotch called Reid who quickly answered, “Hey Hotch, you guys done?” “Yes, I was just calling to figure out where you guys wanted to eat, we’re all just waiting in the hotel rooms.” “There’s this pretty good burger place and bar near our hotel called Johnny’s if you want?” “Yeah, sounds good, it’s right around the corner from our hotel so that’ll work.” The team met up in the hotel lobby but right as they were going Emily stopped. “Hey guys, turn around.” They did and cracked up laughing, seeing the X-men, having now changed into regular street clothes, exiting the elevator. Logan saw them first and started laughing as they met in the middle of the lobby. They all bunched together chatting when Derek spoke up “I told you I saw them here this morning, Hotch.” Emily snorted “Yeah, you guys aren’t exactly subtle in your uh uniforms.” Logan snorted before they all walked out the door. 


	16. Chapter 16 - Rumors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, sorry! Not at all necessary, I just wrote this for my own pure enjoyment, hope you enjoy, I'll try to get back to the main theme of the story now...

It was just under a year later and life for the BAU members was going as smoothly as it ever could when you consider that they spend their days chasing the worst monsters of the nation. The team had had many get-togethers throughout the year, sometimes even including the team’s extended families. The ambassador had joined them a few times when her schedule permitted, Derek’s family had come down from Chicago a few times, they had seen Remy a bit, even Scott, Alex, and Logan a couple of times. Other units in the FBI talked about how close they were, some suggested various relationships between team members, which always got eye rolls and harsh explanations when they were overheard, that multiple agents were either married or in perfectly committed relationships and insinuating they were cheating would not be an advisable course of action. God help the person if Hotch was the one to overhear, he turned seriously protective, and those people would be the unfortunate targets of his rage and harshest glare while he oh so politely loudly explained that if they had a problem with the familial relationship of his team they could either man up and say something to his face and that he would have no problem including them in their next briefing if they would like to try to get through it without puking. 

Two cocky young agents from cyber-crimes had called Hotch on his bluff and said it wouldn’t be that bad, then the leader of the two said to his companion, “Maybe we can actually see first hand whatever the hell is up with this team, I’m sure the Ice Queen would love to hear about this stuff.” Hotch actually rolled his eyes at the agents, and Derek had straight-up laughed from where he was next to Hotch before walking away, leaving his boss to get the two agents' names.

Hotch had explained what happened to his team leaving a couple of them in full-blown giggle attacks before saying, “I’m going to go find the, who was it,  _ Ice Queen _ , and request she sit in on our next case briefing, just to see their faces.” Derek snorted while Rossi just smirked and JJ said: “You know, everyone’s always said we were closer than normal, and I don’t know what triggered it exactly, but the last couple years have been even more familial than before, and I for one could not be happier, it’s brought changes, good changes, in all of our personalities.” Derek fake gagged getting a slap from his baby girl when he said: “Oh sure JJ, make the awesome Hotch moment all sappy, because man, Hotch, this personable, slightly evil, the person instead of the stoic boss, is freakin’ awesome.” Hotch just glared before saying “I guess I just realized I could have a personality and still lead the slightly dysfunctional group of hooligans.” The group faked offense to that but Morgan said: “And yet, that glare still manages to make you feel like a guilty 5-year-old.” “Act your age, maturely, and we won’t have that problem, now if you’ll excuse me, I require a prompt conversation without esteemed Ice Queen, Section Chief.” He handed a sticky note to Garcia and asked her to find the agents’ numbers so they could be alerted to the next briefing, before walking up the catwalk with Rossi and into Strauss’ office.

The two slid into her office right past her assistant and opened her door after a half knock from Rossi. Julie came running in behind them, having never seen either of them before, as it was only her first week, “Sirs! Sirs! You can’t go in there….I’m so sorry ma’am! They didn’t stop.” Strauss looked up and when she saw who was standing in front of her a half-amused smile flitted across her face before she spoke to her assistant “Julie, you’re okay, these two, seem to have very little… regard... for cooperation, neither Agent Hotchner nor my boyfriend are likely to wait to be let in, they will just fly by you, don’t worry about it. You may return to your desk, please close the door and hold my calls until they leave, thank you.” The magnitude of what Strauss said flew over her assistant head in her fear of getting in trouble, neither profiler missed it though. Rossi’s eyes widened nearly imperceptibly, while a half-smirk planted itself on Hotch’s face. As soon as the door shut he turned on Rossi shaking his head “I knew it, you old dog.” Rossi just dropped into a chair not denying anything while Strauss looked confused. “What, Aaron, what did you know?” Rossi sighed and said, “Babe, you just called me your boyfriend in front of your assistant and Aaron.” Strauss’ eyes widened and she just looked at Hotch until he said, “Strauss, you know I’m not going to say anything, I wouldn’t do that to Dave, and now that you’re not so, Dave what was the Agents’ term, oh right Ice-Queenish anymore, I wouldn’t do it to you either. I was 99% sure though you guys were in a relationship though, I think some of the team might suspect it but I’m not sure.”

Strauss nodded and recomposing herself said, “Very well, I don’t imagine the two of you came up here for kicks and giggles, what did you need.” Both profilers looked mildly guilty and she said: “Good Lord, just because I like your team doesn’t mean you can just do whatever, please tell me no one died because of whatever you two did.” Hotch spoke up “No, not at all, Section Chief Strauss, we would request that you sit in on our next case briefing.” “

Please drop the formal weirdness, Aaron, it’s honestly bothersome knowing the hell I put your team through unnecessarily. And I can do that… but why?” 

“Sorry, but I’m sure you heard the latest set of… indecent rumors about my team, well, Morgan and I overheard two agents from another division talking about them and I kindly suggested he either ask me himself, shut up, or attend our next briefing and try to not throw up from it. As we were about to walk away, they mentioned they were sure a certain “Ice Queen” would love to know about all our indecent escapades in the conference room, so I thought it might be interesting for them to show up and see you were already there.” Strauss shook her head and said, “I get the feeling my boyfriend’s pranks, along with those of other members of your team are rubbing off on you, I will, however, indulge this because honestly, I need a break from paperwork.” Rossi raised his eyebrows suggestively, “You could always just come to my office…” 

Strauss gasped “David Rossi, I am your superior at the office and that would be highly unprofessional, not to mention that Aaron is sitting next to you at the moment!”

Hotch shook his head while Rossi defended himself “Technically, you’re not my direct superior, Hotch is, and I was just saying, besides, Aaron was around for the peak of my career, he knows far more than anyone realizes I’m sure.”

Hotch stood up, “While true, I have no interest in adding to that file in my brain, so I will leave you two to work out your lover's quarrel, Strauss, I will have Garcia tell you when we brief next.”

Rossi leaned over the desk and gave her a kiss the turned her whole face red before following his boss out the door. As they left Aaron looked to Rossi and said: “Congratulations Dave, you really care about each other, that much was obvious in 5 minutes, but please don’t piss her off, the whole team likes this nice Strauss.” Rossi smiled and said, “I’m trying not to, I honestly feel like I haven’t since I married Carolyn, I feel like, I don’t know, this one’s actually right Aaron, it’s not some rebound, I really like her, I want this one to work, I honestly want to make her the last Mrs. Rossi.” Aaron gave his friend a slight smile “I hope it works out for you two Dave, you both deserve love.”

They walked to where the team was still standing laughing and Hotch cleared his throat and the team shut up but the smiles remained “Care to enlighten us on what’s so funny?” Everyone looked to Garcia so she spoke up “Well, uh, Sir, I looked up our macho rumor mill agents like you asked and they’re in, uh Cyber Crimes.” Rossi snorted and a hint of a smile passed Hotch’s face before he asked straight-faced, “So do any of you planning on finishing your files today?” They all scuttled back to their desks while Hotch retreated to his office. Everyone was just getting back from lunch when JJ popped into his office and dropped and file on his desk before saying “New case, look good?” He flipped through barely skimming the pages but trusting JJ before nodding and leaving his office with her to call out “Case! Briefing in 10! Garcia, please text our guests, as well as Strauss.” The team gathered in the conference room after grabbing some more coffee, with Strauss joining them shortly. 

The two cyber-crimes agents walked in right as JJ was getting ready to present, obviously shocked at the section chief's presence but Hotch glared at them before telling them to sit. Agent Idiot 1 quietly spoke to Strauss, “excuse me, Ma’am, but do you regularly sit in on these briefings?” 

In her harshest Ice Queen tone, she replied: “No, Agent Edwards, I don’t, this team is one of the best and I trust them, I do sometimes join to stay apprised of team morale and interactions.” Hotch was slightly less polite when adding (okay he might have Hotch-Roared at them but none of the team saw anything, did you?) “Are you seriously coming into MY conference room and questioning the people inside it, simultaneously slowing down and interfering with our work?”

“No, Sir.”

“I thought not. JJ, please”

She began and barely halfway through empty crime scene photos where the body had already been taken to the ME the 2nd agent was a little green, he made it one more picture before saying “I apologize for spreading unnecessary rumors, excuse me.” He ran out of the room with a hand slapped out of his mouth and mildly satisfied glances being exchanged by the team. The 1st agent made it through until Garcia displayed a picture of a naked woman brutally beaten and displayed hanging from a tree. The agent slapped a hand over his mouth and raced out of the conference room without a word. The team let out full-blown snickers that turned into laughs when Garcia said “Oh No! That's the wrong crime scene photo, that was from an old case, my apologies, I must’ve clicked the wrong file on my tablet, so sorry my fantastic crime fighters.” The team was falling onto the table laughing which both Hotch and Strauss permitted for a moment before saying “If that’s all Garcia should we proceed with the case that actually needs our attention?” Strauss stood up, “If this male posturing session is over, I believe I shall head back to my office.” Hotch nodded and she got a quiet round of thanks for indulging their antagonism.


	17. Chapter 17 - Secrets

_ About a month later… _

The team had been on a god-awful case, stretching exactly a week before they dragged themselves back onto the plane, more than ready to see those ugly walls of the bullpen again. They were all ready to get home, and flop into bed, after holding and talking to their families, everyone needing the assurance that everyone else was okay. The case was the kind that made them question just how long one could really stay in the BAU and still be considered sane. Where Rossi debated retiring permanently this time, and Hotch actually considered taking the “promotion” Strauss had suggested periodically since Haley’s passing. He knew now she suggested it with honest intentions about how much more he would be around for his son, knowing that her own divorce when her children were young and she was still a field agent, colored her view and regret of not seeing them enough. And yet, they would all take the long weekend she had given them, before showing up bright and early Monday morning, ready to do it all over again. Sometimes they all couldn’t help ponder how much saner any of them were then the unsubs they caught.

This case had been a knock-down, drag-out case, resulting in exhausted, sleep-deprived agents, far to many children that would be permanently affected, and a city that would take a long time to get over it, but they would, the profilers could tell from their first day, the community would band together, they’d support the hurting families, they’d survive, they would never forget though. A delusional unsub had been kidnapping a new child daily, and keeping them all to perform horrific what he called “medical research” on them. When the BAU had been called in he had 5 children and had taken another 6 during their time on the case. The children looked like they’d been tortured nonstop, by one of the worst unsubs they’d seen in a while. It had obviously hit JJ and Hotch hard, as well as Rossi who always privately fought the demons of his son who passed away as an infant during these child cases, wondering if he would’ve been able to protect James from these horrors of the world, or if he would’ve gotten drug into the middle of his father’s job like Jack and Haley had. Spencer was obviously affected, and the team finally figured out why when they overheard him while he was trying to remind JJ that Henry was safe at home. He revealed why cases like this hit him just as hard too. He explained the young children at the mansion, abandoned by their families at 5, 6, 7, because of being a mutant. and how he and the other adults that were around were the only parental figures they’d ever remember. Surprisingly, that was what JJ had needed to hear, to remind herself that Henry was safe, he had two parents that loved him and that would never change, that would do everything to protect. Later that night she was thinking over Spencer’s words again and vowed her son would never feel that kind of rejection or that unloved, no matter what he did, she would always be there for him, with her arms open for a hug and a kiss whenever he needed.

It was Hotch who had come up with an idea to help get the team through the trying case. He had known it would be bad before they left Quantico, they had even skipped the team meal from the first day which was crazy rare. Hotch decided they could spare 15 minutes though at the start of the day to boost everyone’s mood before getting bogged down at the station. He invited everyone into his room, as he wasn’t sharing for this case. Once everyone arrived he spoke “This is only our second day and we all are already getting drug down by this case, myself included and I can see it in your faces. I know we don’t have time for a full team meal, this case, but we can take 10 or 15 minutes and cheer everyone up in the mornings. So, today, I’m going to call Jack and let him cheer us all up, JJ can we call Henry tomorrow? We’ll figure out more people for however many days we need.” JJ nodded and Hotch dialed before putting the phone on the speaker. As soon as they heard Jack’s voice, all their faces lit up a bit, because by God he may not be their blood family but not one of them could love him or Henry anymore if he was, besides, who can be down when his bright, childlike happiness is radiating through the phone. “Hi, Daddy! Why are you calling before school? Aunt Jess says I gotta get ready but I gots time!” The whole team laughed and Hotch spoke: “Hey buddy, you need to behave for Aunt Jess but for today it’s okay, you can talk to the whole team right now if you want.” “Uncle Dave’s there? And Aunt JJ, Aunt Emily, Uncle Spencer, Uncle Derek?!? Really?” “Yeah, bud.” They all spoke up saying “Hi Jack” He was so excited, they asked him about what he was doing with his aunt, what he was doing at school, it was a really fun call. Hotch looked at his watch eventually and sighed before saying, “Hey Jack buddy, we need to go, and you need to get to school, can you give the phone to Aunt Jess really fast please?” “Yeah, bye daddy, bye Uncle Dave, Aunt JJ, Uncle Derek, Uncle Spence, and Aunt Emily, I love you guys so much, go catch the un-un-uns-uhhh… bad guys. Bye, daddy!” They heard him give the phone to Jess and snickered at Jack’s attempt to remember the word unsub until she spoke up, “Aaron? Everything okay?” “Yeah, sorry about taking his time before school, but it’s a bad case and we needed a little cheer up.” “You guys got this Aaron, and Jack will be waiting for his superman hug when you get back, for now just worry about the case, you guys can do it.” “Thanks, Jess, I’ll call you guys later.” He hung up and the whole team had smiles on their faces and Dave spoke: “There is very little that is quite as cute as childhood innocence and joy.” The team agreed before dragging themselves to the station for another hard day.

The next day they talked to Henry who was just as amusing, they called Remy who cracked them all up, they called Jack and Henry again but hadn’t had time for a call on the last day, they were trying to get to the unsub off a lead before he could get a child and had left the hotel at just after 6 that morning.

They found the unsub and went out to get him with a force of nearly unseen size before for the BAU. They had evidence to believe all the children were still alive but in bad shape from a family member who had gone to visit her cousin, and had seen a couple of children in the backyard, as well as her cousin refusing to let her inside. SWAT, local police, the BAU, and even the county’s sheriff's office had leant them some manpower for the raid onto the suspected house of the unsub. The ambulances had lined the street waiting to collect the children and rush them all to the hospital. The unsub had gone after the LEO’s with a hailstorm of firepower. The unsub was shot in the shoulder but survived and was taken into custody. One of the local officers was shot in the stomach, he’d survived but he would never walk again, just to rub salt in the wound he left in this city. Reid had taken a graze to his arm, which was bandaged and he was released. Emily had taken one in the vest which had bloomed into a huge bruise across her chest and cracked a rib, but no serious damage. She two was released within a couple of hours as there was really nothing they could do.

They landed in DC and though Strauss had told them they could do the paperwork when they got back on Monday, they had to get back to the bureau to assure Garcia they were all okay, especially as two of her babies had been shot.

The team walked through the bullpen doors and Garcia was waiting for them anxiously. She ran up to Emily first and gave her a gentle hug, not wanting to hurt her rib, before squishing the rest of the team giant hugs, even Hotch indulged her. She turned to Spencer but stopped before hugging him knowing his aversion to touch. She held back half a second before saying “Can I please give you a hug? Just to make sure my perfect vanilla bean is still perfect?” Reid blushed and hesitantly nodded opening up his uninjured arm. She (gently, he was shot after all) crushed him in a hug before jumping back saying “And what is that mister?!” “Um, what is what Garcia?” his shirt had shifted in the hug, and Rossi, who was next to him, caught a glint off the gold chain barely peeking out from the top button of his shirt being unbuttoned. “I think she’s talking about the chain around your neck Reid.” He said with a smirk. Reid blushed furiously and glanced around before walking to his desk not saying anything. Garcia ran after him “Oh no no no 187, I know what I felt. Is that a RING!?” He turned and seeing his whole team had followed her and knowing he had no chance of getting out of this, reached into his shirt and hesitantly pulled out his shirt exposing the whole chain with a gold ring hanging on it. “Um, Remy proposed to me a couple of weeks ago, he has a similar ring with my birthstone in it like I have his in this one. We’re both wearing them on chains until the wedding and then we’ll put them on as a cute ceremony thing, I guess, ask Remy, I know you have his number, Garcia.

She interrupted, “Of course I do, he’s an amazing shopping partner!” Spencer looked up panicked, “You’ve met up with him alone, YOU and REMY, and the mall is still standing? Are we sure about that?” “Oh shush 187, we’re not that bad together.” A couple of members of the team cringed, picturing the havoc the two of them could wreak together. “Besides, Boy Genius, unimportant, wedding, proposal, details… now.” 

Spencer spoke again, “Okay, I think he’s telling some of the X-Men but I wanted to wait to see if I could go until wedding invitations without anyone figuring it out and how everyone would react when they get the invitation with no prior knowledge, obviously that failed.” 

“Well, now I know sooner! I'm so happy for you! How dare you try and keep this from the all-knowing goddess? You are forgiven though because you had a good idea.” 

At that JJ spoke up “Congratulations Reid, you deserve all the happiness Remy can bring you, you two are perfect together.” “Thanks, JJ” The whole team offered their congratulations and Reid was glowing in happiness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long paragraphs, I was just trying to get another chapter posted, I didn't totally proofread it, but I have new ideas for stories that I want to write but I don't want too many going at once, so this is what I've got if I have the energy I'll come back and edit it a little later.


End file.
